


How I kidnapped our boss

by FantasyFreak_2



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Also in his own way, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst and Humor, At least from the main characters it is still the world of TMA, Because my heart will need it the closer the podcast comes to and end, Because that should be the first thing they do to stop the apocalypse, Canon Asexual Character, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, Hunt Avatar Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Hurt/Comfort, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Alice "Daisy" Tonner Are Best Friends, Kidnapping, M/M, Manipulative Elias Bouchard, Protective Elias Bouchard, Protective Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Protective Martin Blackwood, Protective Peter Lucas, Sex-Repulsed Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Stockholm Syndrome, Time Travel Fix-It, Whump Elias Bouchard, in his own way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:48:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 35,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27603740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FantasyFreak_2/pseuds/FantasyFreak_2
Summary: Being in love could change people – Tim was more than aware of that. And while Jon´s attitude to Martin might have changed from spitting vitriol to love sick puppy eyes in less than a day, well... it probably just had been him pulling pigtails. And new love sick Jon was far more fun to be around, laughed at Tim´s jokes, hugged Sasha, came out to the pubs and wasn´t as focused on his work.Yes being in love could change people quite a lot but he was pretty sure that kidnapping their boss wasn´t usually part of it.“Sasha!” Tim said slightly out of breath. “You have the highest seniority and you worked with the weird shit in storage, right? Do you think Jon could have been replaced by a body snatcher?”Sasha looked at him with raised eyebrows. “I doubt it.”“He wants to come to lunch with us!” Tim hissed. “Something is wrong with him!”“Why are you so agitated? That sounds nice.” Martin smiled and poured the tea in the four cups that he had already put on the small kitchen table - four even though he couldn´t have known Jon would say yes to lunch together for the first time in years.
Relationships: Basira Hussain & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas, Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Martin Blackwood & Sasha James & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Sasha James/Tim Stoker
Comments: 332
Kudos: 492





	1. Attack of the body snatchers?

**Author's Note:**

> So now I´ll also join the "Jon timetraveled to stop the Apocalpyse" squad. Main reason is because I´m disappointed that in all stories I´ve seen until now no one does the obivious thing to stop it. Mostly Jon tries to stop it in secret while manipulating Elias but even with all the knowledge of the future Elias is still the Master of Manipulation so that is pretty difficult.
> 
> No the obvious solution is: Kidnapp Elias (since killing would kill Sasha, Martin and Tim). He´s a weak man with no useful abilities in combat because he´s serving The Eye. It´s so easy.
> 
> So here´s the story and the consequences that will have in my opinion.

Tim had to look twice as he saw Jon come into the archive happily humming a tune. He never had heard Jon hum before. Scratch that he never had seen Jon come to work with a bright smile. And with Martin following behind him as well. Usually the moment Martin was near him Jon would give biting commentary to everything he did.

“Hello boss?” Tim said guardedly. 

Jon turned at him and beamed. “Tim, so nice to see you.”

Tim starred at him incredulously. Then he turned to Sasha working next to him who looked at him similarly confused and with a raised eyebrow. Jon didn´t seem to notice and strode past them still humming. “I´m going down to look at the statements. See you later, Martin.”

“Bye Jon.” Martin´s happy smile at least could be explained by his crush being nice to him for the first time... ever but it did not explain why Martin wasn´t as freaked out by their bosses weird behaviour as the rest of them.

Sasha seemed to wonder about that too. “What´s up with Jon?”

Martin´s smile disappeared. “What do you mean what´s up with him?”

“He smiled.” Tim answered. “Continuously. Without a cat present.”

“And hummed.” Sasha added.

“And hummed.” Tim agreed. “He smiled and hummed without a cute kitten around and without trying to hide it. Do you think he finally had a mental break down?”

Martin frowned. “Being happy isn´t a mental break down.”

“For Jon it is!” Tim disagreed. “You don´t know him as long as we do since you started working here recently but Jon Sims isn´t the smiling type. He´s the smile-once-in-a-blue-moon type.”

Martin nervously rubbed his hands together. “Maybe he is just happy. People are allowed to be happy.” Then a weirdly sad smile appeared on his face. “And I think I have him quite figured out by now.”, he said more to himself than to his colleagues. 

“Martin?” Sasha asked worry in her voice. “Are you alright?”

“Yes.” Martin took a deep breath and turned around to them with a smile. “Yes, quite alright sorry. It´s just... bad memories is all.” His smile didn´t reach his eyes.

Tim was more familiar with bad memories than he would like and didn´t ask any further. Sasha looked as if she wanted to ask further question – always the curious one – but Tim looked at her and minusculely shook his head. She sighed and nodded reluctantly.

Tim turned back to Martin and smiled brightly. “Well Marto, how was your weekend?”

The curious occurrences around Jon continued at lunch. Tim as always went down to Jon to ask him if he wanted to have lunch with them expecting to be shot down as always so he didn´t quite notice as Jon happily answered. “Sure, I´ll be right up!”

“Ok, maybe next time.” Tim had already nodded and was about to turn around and go as his brain processed what he just heard. “Wait a moment, what? You said yes?” 

Jon looked at him with a bemused expression. “Yes Tim, I said yes. I´m capable of answering questions in the binary. Yes and No are both options. Who knows one day I might be daring and say maybe.”

Tim stared at him for several seconds in silence. “Was that a joke? Can you even do that?”

Jon looked at him worriedly as if Tim was behaving weirdly instead of his boss acting like he was taken by the body snatchers. Maybe he was? Considering the weird shit in their statements who knew if body snatchers weren´t real?

Tim slowly backed off out the door again, closed it in front of him, then turned around and ran up to Martin and Sasha who were already in the small kitchen area the archives had. Martin was making tea while Sasha was heating her home-made lunch in the microwave. Both looked up startled as Tim rushed in the door.

“Sasha!” Tim said slightly out of breath. “You have the highest seniority and you worked with the weird shit in storage, right? Do you think Jon could have been replaced by a body snatcher?”

Sasha looked at him with raised eyebrows. “I doubt it.”

“He wants to come to lunch with us!” Tim hissed. “Something is wrong with him!”

“Why are you so agitated that sounds nice?” Martin smiled and poured the tea in the four cups that he had already put on the small kitchen table - four even though he couldn´t have known Jon would say yes to lunch together for the first time in years.

Tim screeched and jumped behind Sasha to hide. “They got Martin too!”

“What is going on here?” Jon stood in the entrance finally wearing his trademark frown again. 

That managed to calm down Tim enough that he rushed to his boss to shake him by the arms. “Jon, you have to tell me what´s wrong with you? Did the stress finally go to your head? Are you sick? Are you taking happy drugs?”

“What? No, no, what are you doing?” Jon managed to free himself of Tim´s grip and pushed him back slightly. “What is even going on with you? Why are you behaving so weird?”

“I´m behaving weird? You are behaving weird with all that... all that smiling and humming and nice greetings and wanting to have lunch with us and and...” Tim stopped to breathe in.

Jon had blushed and nervously rubbed his neck while pointedly not looking at anyone. “Oh that´s what this is about. I didn´t realize how... looking happy seemed to have been... uncharacteristic for me. It´s just... I mean I can be... I...”

“We´re dating.” Martin blurted out.

“What?” Tim spluttered.

Martin´s face was by now a similar colour as his Bordeaux red jumper but he raised his chin and looked directly at Tim. “Me and Jon are dating now. We didn´t want to immediately tell everyone since it´s fairly new but we are dating and VERY HAPPY!”

As if his words finally realised the flood gates Jon rushed over and pulled Martin in a hug. “You have no idea how happy you make me.” 

Tim looked at them and blinked than he slowly nodded. “Oooook, I get it. Honeymoon phase has been entered. Everything is sunshine and roses for a few weeks than everything will get back to normal.” He nodded again than sat down at the table and took his cup of tea (he always had the cup stating “Will I turn everything into a pun? Pro-Bi-Bly”) and started drinking.

Sasha seemed to take a moment longer then a realization crossed her face. “Wait, that´s why the two of you came in at the same time today!”

Tim couldn´t believe how he nearly missed that gossip. “Uhhhh, steamy night yesterday? That can of course also improve the mood.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Jon had by now let go of Martin so they both could sit down but he had pushed his chair so close to Martin that their sides where flush against each other. Both of them had a sandwich in front of them but were too busy holding hands to eat.

“Oh... eh no.” Jon winkled his nose. “That´s not really...”

“Jon doesn´t do sex.” Martin said.

“Oh...” Tim blinked in realization. “Oh, sorry I didn´t know.”

Jon waved it off. “It´s fine.”

Tim shook his head. “No, I hate it when people ignore or make fun of my sexuality. I didn´t want to make you uncomfortable.”

Jon waved his hand dismissively. “You didn´t know it´s fine. And I´m not a delicate flower I can take jokes about sex. I just don´t like the act very much. It´s just... messy. But...” He looked at Martin and smiled looking disgustingly in love. “we were together in bed yesterday all night.”

Tim grinned. “No reasonable person would ever decline a nice cuddle session, right Sasha?” He threw his arms around her.

“Egh, Tim get off!” Sasha laughed. “This is sexual harassment.”

“This is cuddle harassment!” Tim disagreed.

“Tim for gods sake stop being so unprofessional!” Jon groaned.

“Says the guy cuddling his assistant. Is that even allowed according to the handbook?” Tim teased.

“Your impossible, why did I want to go to lunch with you again?”

“Because you love us!” Tim grinned.

Finally everything was right again. Jon would he in a happy mood for a few days and then everything would go back to normal.

How wrong he was.


	2. Late night discussions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon confesses some things to his co-workers and the plan "kidnapp Elias" starts taking form.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was a bit obsessed with this story for the last few days and written like... ten chapters? So you´ll get some regular updates now but I warn you: once exam season starts in uni I´ll have problems to write more fast.

The rest of the week Jon remained as relaxed and happy as he had been on the day of his and Martin´s confession. The more Tim looked the more astonished he was at the change. Jon always leaned into Martin when they were in the same room like a flower to the sun. They regularly exchanged kisses and Martin asked at least twice a day if Jon would like tea to which Jon always agreed enthusiastically. 

But it wasn´t just with Martin. Jon always joined them at lunch now. He laughed at Tim´s stupid jokes, devolved in discussion over useless facts with Sasha and as they invited him to a pub night on Friday with them he said yes even though he usually couldn´t stand the mass of people or the loud atmosphere.

The only one he didn´t seem to be especially happy to see was Elias. Tim only saw Jon greet Elias one time and he looked cold – even colder than he would have looked before dating Martin. He probably was worried about Elias finding out and reprimanding him about dating someone who technically worked for him as his assistant.

Tim used the next opportunity he got to ask Jon if he was worried about Elias´ opinion of their relationship - while they sat next to each other in the pub with a nice pint of beer in front of them. 

Jon just laughed. “If he doesn´t like it he can fire me.” 

Martin giggled next to him like it was the funniest joke he ever heard.

Sasha frowned. “Aren´t you worried he´ll do that? There are other candidates out there for your position.”

Jon smiled and raised his beer to her. “And far more qualified ones as well.”

Tim laughed next to him. “Don´t forget prettier.”

Sasha blushed. “I... That´s not what I meant...”

Jon waved it off. “Listen, we all know you deserved the position if Elias hadn´t been... you know. I´m really sorry that you were ignored like that. One of the reasons I was so... hard the last weeks was because I knew I didn´t deserve the position.”

Sasha´s eyes became warm. “Oh Jon, that isn´t your fault.”

“I...” Jon looked down at the dirty table. “I didn´t only change because of Martin. I... I found this tape... I don´t think the two of you even noticed it you were taped – it was probably the old tape recorder which turned itself on – but you were talking about how Sasha deserved the position more than me and that I didn´t know what I was doing. And...” A small smile tugged on his lips. “And how you could get her the job by cutting the brakes on my office chair to kill me which is like... a terrible plan. And you know... you´re right. Not about the killing I mean about me not deserving the position. And I´m sorry I was so hard on you I just... wanted to prove myself.”

There was silence after his small speech only interrupted by Martin putting his arm around Jon.

Tim spoke first. “I... I´m sorry. You know I didn´t mean it. Well... I definitely think the thing with the office chair would work but... you don´t deserve my anger. I was pissed at Elias about just passing over Sasha even though she deserved it and you... you didn´t make it very easy to like you. But I understand that you were under a lot of unfair pressure and it´s not like you asked for Elias to be a sexist asshole.”

Jon had a small self-deprecating smile on his face. “I never believed he would choose me. And I wanted to prove myself soooo much.” He huffed. “It was ridiculous instead of listening to others with more experience I wanted to do everything myself. So let´s make this official: I´m very sorry for how I behaved and even after...” his eyes shifted to Martin. “after the “honeymoon stage” I will not go back to how sour I was before. And Sasha... if I could give you the position you deserved I would.”

Sasha smiled and patted Jon´s hand. “Thanks, Jon.”

“Well, I think this calls after more alcohol.” Tim laughed. “Let´s get another round.”

Jon and Martin were very drunk as they stumbled out of the pub. They said goodbye to Sasha and Tim who raised a suggestive eyebrow at them leaving together (apparently not having sex didn´t change anything about Tim making dirty jokes about them – the jokes were just more creative).

“Elias is sleeping.” Jon mumbled to Martin as they got into the tube home (they preferred going to Martin´s flat since it was far more homely than Jon´s).

“Thank god.” Martin groaned. “I hate having to watch my every word since he could be watching. Do you think he bought the whole personality-change-because-we´re-in-love thing?”

Jon shrugged. “I hope so. And if not then I think my speech about feeling guilty a few hours ago will have done the rest.”

Martin smiled. “But you are feeling guilty.”

Jon let his head rest on his boyfriends shoulder happy how warm and soft Martin was. “Of course I am. For god’s sake I was so horrible to them that Tim nearly had an aneurism because I smiled at him. I don´t even want to know how you would have reacted if you didn´t remember everything.”

Martin kissed his head. “I would have been incredibly happy.”

“And scared.”

“And very, very scared.” Martin agreed. “I would have drunk like ten cups of tea.”

Jon chuckled softly. “And hovered around me unsure if you wanted to test your luck with the risk to annoy me and make me hate you again.” Jon put his arms around Martin and pulled him closer. “How could I have ever hated you? You´re the only thing keeping me together.”

“Years in an apocalypse can do that to you. But back then you were just insecure and full of doubts. It´s ok, I can´t believe how naive I was back then. As if a cup of tea and a few nice words could have healed the world.”

“It´s ok.” Jon mumbled getting sleepy. “Your tea and words still help me a lot.”

“But not save the world.”

“No.”

“So we are still kidnapping Elias then?”

“He is the only real threat to the world. Every other avatar either has no idea how to make the apocalypse happen or has no interest in making it happen. And Elias is basically defenceless when he can´t see an attack coming. The sooner we´ll do it the less time he has to notice something wrong and the less time has he to manipulate us.”

“Of course that is the plan but - you know - it would be over if we killed him.”

“Tim, Sasha - maybe even us - would die if we killed him. I´m not sure how the time travel might have influenced our connection to Elias.”

“Yes but... wouldn´t it be the right thing to do?”

“I refuse to live in a world without you.” Jon mumbled. “And I´m the most likely to survive alone - so no. Sue me, I´m going to be selfish this once.”

“Ok... Yes just... let´s make sure no one dies this time. That we know enough to protect them now.”

“Yes.”

“Let´s be happy this time.”

“Mhm, happy. That sounds nice.”


	3. The making of a prison cell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon and Martin search for Jurgen Leitner so he can help them in their plan to kidnap Elias.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally time for the plan-to-kidnap-Elias TM

“Are you sure Elias can´t see us down here?” Martin asked nervously and used his flash light to look around as if he could see Elias gaze on them.

“Yes, I Know that he can´t.” Jon answered. “Considering we are stumbling through these tunnels for hours now and I have no idea where we are or how to find what we need.”

He sighed and leaned against the next wall. They had gone down to the tunnels under the archive right after a late breakfast on Saturday but it was just as much of a maze as he remembered. It wasn´t helped by the fact that the entrance to the tunnels in the archive was still technically hidden so they had to take ages to open it without leaving to much evidence. The old book-case keeping the entrance hidden looked about ready to collapse if moved to suddenly.

“Smirke was very good in balancing the fears against each others in here; the Dark and the Spiral make everything so confusing.” Jon rubbed his eyes tiredly. “If we were closer to the actual panopticon my powers would become stronger again - Jonah managed to mess with that part - but I doubt Leitner would hide there for exactly that reason. He has become a master of hiding from the Eye by now.”

“Maybe we should try shouting?” Martin suggested.

“Shouting?” Jon asked incredulous. “Like just walk around and shout “Leitner we wanna talk to you”? These tunnels are endless who says he would even notice us?”

“There hasn´t been anyone down here in ages.” Martin shrugged. “And as you said he is good at hiding. He´ll probably notice someone coming down and follow us to see what we want.”

Jon tilted his head. “Mhm, I guess you´re right. The first few times that I searched the tunnels after Prentiss I felt watched so that probably was him.” Jon grinned and gave Martin a short kiss. “What would I do without you?”

Martin raised an eyebrow but smiled. “Fail miserably because you are a terrible planner.”

“Harsh.” Jon turned around to where they came from and started calling out. “Jurgen Leitner, my name is Jon Sims. I am the new archivist.”

Nothing happened. Martin stepped next to Jon. “We were send by Gertrude Robinson to find you.”

Jon looked at Martin and whispered. “We weren´t send by her.”

“But that will make him trust us more.” Martin hissed. “Plus, hadn´t she made that tape for the Archivist that you found in the Apocalypse where she warns you about Elias? We can act like we actually found that yesterday or something.”

Jon nodded slowly. “Good thinking. Maybe after we dealt with Elias we can actually find it and give it to Sasha and Tim. Might explain a few things. But first we have to find Leitner.” Jon started walking back to where they´d come from and again started shouting. “Jurgen Leitner, we need to talk to you. We were send by Gertrude Robinson. Jurgen Lei...”

And tall, thin figure stepped out of the shadows before them and the old face of Jurgen Leitner stared at them only illuminated by Jon´s torch. He wondered how Leitner had managed to navigate the dark tunnels but he probably new them by heart after all those years. In his right hand he held in old book that Jon believed to be a Leitner.

Leitner eyed the two of them up and down distrustful. “You were send by Gertrude?”

“Yes.” Martin nodded and smiled at him enthusiastically. “We found a tape that she made for the next Archivist in case she... she wouldn´t be here anymore.”

“You found it.” Leitner looked pleasantly surprised. “I´d thought Elias would have made the tape disappear. I have so much to warn you about...”

“Yes, yes.” Jon nodded impatiently. “There are evil gods that feed from fear and we serve one of them, Elias is evil and murdered Gertrude, etc. etc. We already know most of it. We need your help.”

Leitner blinked in surprise. “You... you know? But how... you were only in your position for a few weeks...”

“Feels like years.” Jon mumbled and Martin snorted at that. “Listen, we don´t have much time but I promise to explain everything over time. Right now you have to help us stop Elias. He is the greatest danger we all face at the moment.”

Leitner blinked. “I mean... yes, of course he is but how do you want to stop it? He has powerful allies, is a great manipulator and sees everything around him.”

“Well can he defend himself against a punch to the face?” Jon asked curtly.

Leitner frowned. “Eh... probably not? The Watcher has rather... non-physical defences. But he can talk circles around you until you don´t know what to do anymore.”

“Then I´m just gonna punch him before that.” Martin said cheerily.

“You are connected to him.” Leitner warned. “You cannot kill him without harming yourself.”

“Right.” Jon nodded. “That is why we aren´t gonna kill him – just capture him.”

“He has friends in the police – keeping him in prison if he doesn´t want to will prove hard. The Lucas family is incredible powerful as well as Fairchild...”

“No, no, no – definitely no prison, he would just walk out when he wants to.” Jon sounded like he was talking to a child which Martin found incredible amusing considering Leitner´s advanced age and grey hair. “We will kidnap him!”

Leitner starred at him. “Kidnap Elias?”

Jon crossed his arms and looked at him impatiently. “Yes kidnap him; is that so hard to understand?”

Leitner had gotten very pale and was leaning against the wall next to him heavily. “Do you know with what kind of powers you are playing here?”

Martin patted the old man´s shoulder comfortingly. “We had worse. And if we don´t stop him now, we will all suffer worse things than you could ever imagine. So will you help us?”

“Help you kidnap Elias?” Leitner repeated. “I... I mean... if I can? I have been hiding in here for so long I´m not sure how much I can do. Especially since I´m physically about as powerful as Elias.”

“Don´t worry about that.” Jon waved his hand as if to drive away any doubt. “I already found a very... untrustworthy source of narcotics. Luckily it takes a lot to kill an avatar so it won´t do too much harm that the narcotics don´t quite conform to medical guidelines. No, what we need is a prison cell.”

“A prison...” Leitner caught himself repeating again and stopped. “I... I guess you want to use one of my books to make one down here.”

“Yes.” Jon seemed happy to have finally come to the point he actually wanted to talk about. “Down here in the maze where no one would know where to look or how to find him. Of course far away from the panopticon so he can´t draw any power from there. Oh, and it needs to be warded against any allies that he has, especially Peter Lucas!”

Leitner slowly nodded, gaze far away, thinking about every aspect Jon mentioned one after the other. “That should be possible. Yes, I know which books I have to look into for that. But if I understand your plan correctly Elias has to stay down here for YEARS. We might not want to give him all the luxuries in the world but the cell at least would need some pluming wit ah bathroom that probably needs running water – otherwise it could invite sickness that would kill even an avatar. I can make a room using the books, maybe I could even shift some pipes in the correct place but connecting them to an actual toilet goes over my head.”

“Oh...” Jon nodded slowly. “I hadn´t thought about it but yes... that´s probably a good idea.”

“Maybe we should lay down some electricity lines down here too?” Martin piped up. “So we can put up cameras and not have to run down here for everything. And some electric light would be far easier than using candles.”

“Yes.” Jon agreed. “Actually I know at least a plumber that is far too oblivious to ask any kind of question about this place. Martin, did you ever read the statement of Sebastian Skinner?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone doesn´t remember anymore who Sebastian Skinner was I recommend to listen to MAG 87 again. I love the episode.


	4. Mutiny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elias gets kidnapped. He doesn´t especially enjoy it.
> 
> Or: what happens when you put three Beholding servants with no physical capabilities whatsoever in a room to fight.

Elias did not have a pleasant week. Quite the opposite actually two weeks ago a migraine had started that just didn´t want to go away. It might have something to do with his obsessive watching of his archivist and his new... conquest.

Elias had handpicked both Jon and Martin himself. Jon for his incessant curiosity and self-deprecation that led him to self-isolation and of course the mark the web left on him. Martin who was bound to him by his desperation for work and his lying on his CV but who was too soft to ever pose a real danger to him or his Archivist.

At least he thought so until THAT Monday happened. Until his Archivist suddenly became a school boy in love who had eyes for nothing else than Martin and neglected his duties over him. He barely reacted as Elias had snidely remarked on how his longer lunches and going home early had him behind on his work. Usually that would have resulted in a lot of remorse, stuttering apologizes and promises for doing better but now... Jon had nearly looked... annoyed.

That just wouldn´t do! He needed his Archivist focused and isolated and this... silly infatuation with Martin was standing in his way. He had to get rid of it somehow but he was reluctant to just get Martin killed. Not only was he one of his assistants and therefore belonged to him but it would also throw Jon from one Spiral of being in love to a Spiral of mourning and that would just slow him down more. It might also motivate him if he initiated it correctly but Elias already somehow completely missed whatever process led to them falling in love he would be loathed to find out he had missed something else essential. He didn´t want to break his Archivist.

Maybe it would be better to... show them that they just weren´t a good fit for each other? Or get them to a similar relationship like himself and Peter – one where both of them could work in peace? But he doubted Martin would go for something like that. On the other hand he already was pretty isolated maybe with some persuading from Peter it could work?

At least in an hour it would be weekend and he could concentrate on watching and planning instead of dividing his attention constantly. Rosie had already gone home and he had told Jon to come by at closing time to talk about his work performance. Maybe he was lucky and they could manage to get Jon back to focusing on his work without needless bloodshed or heartbreak.

As if Jon had heard him thinking there was a loud knock on the door.

“Enter.” Elias said. To his surprise both Jon and Martin came in. Elias raised an eyebrow at seeing them both. “If I´m not mistaken I think I asked to talk to you alone, Jon?”

Jon smiled but it looked a bit strained. “Since I´m pretty sure you want to complain about our relationship like you did all of the last two weeks I thought it would be best if we were all present.”

Elias forced a kind smile on his face although he felt an angry vein pop up on his temple. “Jon, you must understand that I do not wish either of you ill. It is just that a relationship between a superior and his assistant is not very proper. And it seems to distract you from your work; you had far less hours the last two weeks.”

“I´m not distracted.” Jon pushed out between clenched teeth. “For the first time I actually hold myself to the hours I´m actually HIRED to do and not overtime.”

Elias stood up and walked around his desk to tower over Jon (an obvious power move but one that was still effective). “I had told you that being the head archivist would be a lot of work. Do you want to tell me that you don´t think that you are up to the work?”

The old Jon Sims would have flinched at even the suggestion of not being good enough but now he just squared his shoulders and looked him directly in the eyes. “Elias, I will do everything to finally get some sort of order in the archives but overworking myself won´t help anyone. And my relationship with Martin will not hinder me in any way.”

“It is quite normal to get distracted at the start of a new relationship.” Elias said with a soft voice. “No one is accusing you of anything.”

“And what was it you were doing these last few days?”

“I was worried.” Elias put empathise on the last word with a sharp undertone. “The archives can´t afford you being distracted at such a pivotal point in time. Martin is in the way”

“No.” Jon´s eyes had gone cold and there was an expression on his face that Elias had never seen before and struggled to interpret. “No Elias, Martin is not in the way. The one standing in the way is you.”

“What are you...” Clonk.

The pain was incredible. White hot agony spread over Elias head and white lightning danced in front of his eyes as he fell to the ground. He couldn´t think, he couldn´t feel, he couldn´t see, he couldn´t See. He wasn´t sure how long it took for the pain to decrease enough that he could think again but the moment his thoughts were in enough order he opened his other Eyes to finally see what was going on.

Elias looked through the eyes of the painting of Jonah Magnus that always hung behind the desk he usually sat on. He looked down on his own body lying on the expensive Persian carpet that right now was getting ruined by the pool of blood around his head. If Elias had been a normal human he would be concerned over the blood loss but he Saw that it wasn´t nearly enough to kill an avatar and Martin was already holding a handkerchief to his head to still the bleeding. Elias could feel the blunt pressure through the blinding pain in his head but he hadn´t recognized it until he Saw it. Next to Martin and himself laid the big paper weight of several starring eyes connected by blood-red skin tissue that Peter brought him from one of his travels because he thought it was funny. It was full of blood and Elias realized that Martin must have crept around him as he was arguing with Jon, took the paper weight and hit it over Elias head with all his might. What he didn´t understand was why the meek Martin would do something like that. Why...?

He felt a prick in his right arm and used the paintings eyes to See Jon putting the needle of a syringe in his arm and pushing something right into his blood stream.

Elias tried to use his mouth to protest but only managed a groan.

“Gag him.” Jon´s cold voice said above him.

“You said no one is around to hear.” Martin hissed.

“There isn´t but better safe than sorry.” Jon answered. “And he might try to manipulate us somehow. Elias is easiest to handle without a voice.”

Elias expected for Martin to protest further but instead he just nodded and pulled a gag out of his pocket and put it in his mouth – they had planned this. Elias tried to push both of them of him but his arms wouldn´t move like he wanted them to. It ended up being more of a flailing around. Then he felt cold metal on his wrist as his Archivist handcuffed him.

“Calm down, Elias.” Martin said like he was speaking to a spooked animal. “The narcotic will start working in a minute or two so struggling won´t help. Unfortunately we couldn´t just hit you unconscious and carry you like that.”

“It´s not like in the movies.” Jon protested. “People who pass out wake up after a minute or two unless there is something seriously wrong and we can´t afford that. And there are no narcotics that work immediately either. Chloroform is not only poisonous but also takes way longer than in detective stories.”

Elias felt himself grow weaker and he wasn´t sure if it was the blood loss or the narcotic. He barely could manage to keep his Eyes open.

“Yes, yes, I know.” Martin said as if they were conversing over tea and not Elias bloody body. “But it would make all of this a lot easier.”

Elias made a protesting sound through the gag.

Martin petted his shoulder. “Just relax, Elias. I will be over sooner.”

It went black around Elias for a second as his Eyes failed him but he managed to open them again.

Jon was frowning down at his body. “Martin, he isn´t a dog. You know what he did to us, he doesn´t deserve compassion.”

Elias gave up on Looking and just tried to stay aware enough to stay awake. What did he do according to Jon? What did he know?

“I know but I seeing him lying chained and gagged in a puddle of his own blood... he looks so human.”

Martin´s voice sounded far, far away.

“No matter how much he looks like a human he isn´t one and we need to put him away so he can´t hurt anyone ever again.” 

That was the last thing Elias heard before the darkness swallowed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/dichroic-glass-monster-galaxy-marble-1781889520
> 
> If anyone wonders how the paper weight looks that Peter brought for Elias because he thought it was funny and that Martin used to hit him over the head with. And yes I ship lonelyeyes and it will be relevant further into the FF. But I´m not saying anything else about it, you´ll just have to wait and see.


	5. Imprisonment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elias wakes up in his cell and tries to manipulate himself out of it.

Elias woke with a stabbing pain in his head spreading out from a point on the back of it. He groaned and automatically felt for the position the pain was focused on. He regretted it immediately after the pain got worse and pulled his hand away. At least it didn´t came away wet so there didn´t seem to be any more blood.

He opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was a small light bulb dangling above him which illuminated a small room made of stone. Next to the small bed he laid on was a similarly small table and wooden chair. A cupboard was pressed against the wall and with this little furniture the room was already mostly filled up. Elias raised his head slightly and saw a door on the opposite wall to him. It looked a bit like a prison door in the old ages with bars making up most of it and as he twisted his head to see behind him there was a small door in the wall too but this one was made of wood and seemed to lead into a bathroom.

After he opened his regular eyes he now opened his other Eyes to find out where he was but it was like he existed in a bubble. He could see everything else in the world perfectly well and he could at least feel that he was still close to the Archive but around him his power seemed to lose a lot of his potency. Of course this wasn´t the first place in the world where the Eye was held back by something. Most other fears didn´t appreciate his constant watching and had their own ways of making it difficult. The Dark especially was a hard thing to see into but it also was very recognizable and Elias was sure it wasn´t close. Or maybe it was only partially there?

What Elias actually did see was Martin and Jon sitting in front of the barred door of his – cell he should probably call it. It was harder to See than usual but he could use Martin´s eyes to look around with. Unfortunately all he saw was a damp corridor reaching down into the darkness in both directions. That wasn´t much of information but considering the Archive was near and that he could feel the Panopitcon not too far away too he would wager the guess that he was down in the tunnels Smirke built to the prison. It would also explain his restricted view. Not only were there no eyes down here, Smirke had also done his best to balance the power of all the fears in the maze and Elias back then had only managed to manipulate his design of the Panopticon so seeing in the tunnels was... hard. The Darkness was just as much a part of it as the Eye.

Elias slowly pushed himself up on his elbows and then into a sitting position. He had to stop several times to make the room stop spinning. After he finally made it to his feet he went over to the door with the bars in it to look out. As he already saw through Martin´s eyes both him and his Archivist were in front of the door. Martin sat on one of two wooden stools (similar to the one in Elias cell) which stood on the wall opposite to the cell and was drinking out of a thermos flask with tea. Jon was walking up and down the small corridor full of nervous energy.

At his next turnaround he looked at the cell and saw Elias standing there. Elias tried his best to stand in his usual imposing poster but he was still dizzy and had to use his hand to lean onto the wall to not lose his balance.

Jon looked him up and down as if to search for injuries (kind of ironic considering whose fault his head wound was) then he gave Elias a tight smile. “Hello Jonah.”

Elias tried his best to hide his shock at hearing his old name. “Excuse me?”

Jon clicked his tongue impatiently. “Oh stop it with the games. We know who you are and what you want. How about we talk just talk freely without all your lies and manipulation.”

Elias started getting nervous at the look on Jon´s face but denial still seemed like the strongest weapon right now. Both Martin and Jon were too soft to ever harm anyone they´d consider human. “Archivist, I have no idea...”

“Enough.” Jon hit the bars dividing him from Elias. “You´re name is Jonah Magnus and you are the founder of the Magnus Archives, **isn´t that true?** ” That last words were spoken with an underlying power stronger than Elias had ever felt coming from any Archivist.

“Yes.” The word tumbled out before Elias could stop and he inwardly he cursed. Unfortunately while he was better at handling Jon forcing answers than others since they both got their power from the Eye in the end Elias was just as unable to not answer Jon as he was at making Elias not See him if he really wanted to. But Jon shouldn´t have been able to put so much power in his question already, he started as the Archivist a few weeks ago. He couldn´t have given himself fully to their god already, it just was not POSSIBLE.

Elias saw the green glow in Jon´s eyes and several eyes on his arms that had opened for just a second to look at him and he knew - he Knew - it still had happened somehow. “What are you?”, he whispered in awe.

Jon tilted his head. “I´m the Archive. That´s what you wanted me to be, wasn´t it Jonah?”

It all didn´t make sense - how could Elias have missed something so big? “But how...?”

A small, humourless smile appeared on Jon´s face. “You won, I guess. The Watcher´s Crown happened just as you had planned. You marked me up and made me do the ritual and the apocalypse happened, making us the most powerful people on the earth – or what was left of it. I tried to stop it.” 

Jon looked back at Martin. “We tried to stop it. But we couldn´t. You couldn´t die and everyone with any power around us was more than happy with the status quo. Well, that was until we met with a few of the avatars of the Web. It seems like the Web really doesn´t appreciate being manipulated itself and wanted to rather get rid of the world where it had to play to the tune of another power. Annabelle had allied herself with Mikaele Salesa even before the Apocalypse and with a few gadgets and the dimension gap the Web had already opened years ago at the house at Hill Top Road they managed to send us back. You know time, space, dimensions they are all relative if you really think about it. Simon Fairchild would probably really appreciate the concept if he could ever reach a state of enough knowledge to understand it without going insane.” Jon laughed bitterly.

Elias had listened to the explanation with a mixture of fascination, triumph and horror. He had managed it. His theory of the Watchers Crown was true and he had managed to get his perfect world. But then the Web and his Archivist had ruined it and were now trying to stop him from getting back to the state the world should be in. But still...

He reached out with his hand through the bars to touch one of the places he saw an eye appear on Jon´s arm. Jon didn´t move away even though he flinched. “But you are still so powerful.”

“I already accepted the Eye.” Jon answered finally pulling his arm away and stepping out of Elias reach. “It might have been in another time but acceptance doesn´t just leave your brain even if the moment you did accept never happened. I bring my god sacrifices of fear and I understand it´s workings – there isn´t anything else I need to be as powerful as I can without a ritual.”

“You must miss the power you had before.” Elias whispered.

“I don´t!” Jon shouted. Then he hesitated for a moment. “I do.” He whispered. “Of course I do, power is addicting after all. A part of me still yearns back for our world but the rest of me hates the thought more than anything else.” 

Elias triumphantly noted that Jon called it “our” world. Maybe there was still hope if he handled this right. “Archivist, you have to accept what you are or you´ll never be truly happy. Let me out of here and we can make this perfect world together. A world where you can have anything you ever desired.”

“NO!” Jon hit the door with his fist making Elias take back a step. “I didn´t have anything I desired because of YOU. Because of your damn manipulation Sasha was DEAD. Tim was DEAD. Daisy had to be killed in front of me. You don´t even know who she is yet but she was my best friend and she was DEAD!” Tears were running down Jon´s face but he didn´t seem to care. “All your pretending of caring for us. All of your assurances to help and you got three of my assistants killed. Three of OUR people because all you ever cared about is yourself.”

That was a lot of information to work through at once but Elias got the gist of it – namely that he would readily let his assistants die to reach his goal. He honestly didn´t get why Jon got so worked up about it Gertrude never seemed to really care. But he doubted that Jon wanted to hear that right now so instead he tried another route. “Jon please,” Using his first name seemed like a good idea to make it sound more personal. “We can do better this time. We can...”

“No.” For the first time since Elias woke up Martin spoke. His voice wasn´t very loud but it was spoken with confidence and it was full of ice. Martin stood up, walked to Jon and pulled him into a hug so that Jon could hide his face in his shoulder while Martin was starring Elias down with cold, hard eyes. “I have let you two talk it out because I think Jon needed to confront you but enough is enough Elias! There won´t be a next time and no manipulation tactic you try will give it to you. It´s over! You will stay in this cell until you die and you will never get the chance to end the world again.”

“Martin please.” Elias didn´t had to act quite as hard as usual to get a note of begging in his voice. “You can´t keep me in here forever. I might have some abilities more than usual but I´m still human, I´m still the person that worked with you. I´m still the one showing up at Jon´s birthday party to steal some cake. Keeping me here would come close to torture.” Appealing to the soft side in Martin seemed like a safe bet.

But Martin just laughed. A short, cold laugh Elias never had heard before from him. “Did you really think I could live for YEARS in the apocalypse and still be the kind-hearted fool you employed to abuse? Don´t be absurd. If torturing you is what will keep the Apocalypse at bay than I will happily torture you like you did to us.”

That hadn´t worked especially well - it was time for another tactic. “You seem to know that killing me is a bad idea since it would definitely kill Sasha and Tim and maybe you and Jon as well depending on how time travel might have affected you. If you keep me here I could just stop eating and kill myself.”

“You won´t.” Jon´s voice sounded muffled coming from Martin´s jumper but Elias could still understand him. “You are far too afraid of death.”

“Isolation cells do terrible things to people.” Elias whispered half warningly half desperate. “Have you ever Looked in an American prison?”

Jon laughed sounding quite insane. “I was in the apocalypse - American prisons are nothing against that. And we will deal with it if it becomes a problem but you can still See everything around you in the world – a mercy most inmates do not have.”

“As a friend of Peter Lucas,” Elias argued. “I can tell you that seeing the world full of people around you can just isolate you even further.”

Martin scoffed. “Then you can finally understand how the people around you felt that you isolated to keep them in your control.” 

The last few days Elias did had the feeling that Martin gave of the – smell of the Lonely for want of a better word. He thought that it might have been the worsening state of his mother´s sickness that made him susceptible to its touch but maybe it had been something of the old time line. He wondered if he could use that but right now he didn´t have enough time to think of an appropriate way so he used another weak point in their plan that Jon had already given him. “Jon, you said yourself that we have to feed our god to survive. I need to do that just as much as you and I can´t do it from here.”

“Yes you can.” Jon argued slowly looking up from Martin but not letting go of the hug so he had to twist his neck to see Elias. “I´m the Archivist, I need to go out, ask questions, find stories. You are the Watcher, all you need is to stay back and watch. And you can do that from here as well as from the archive. You can even tell me where you think I should go and while I might think twice about doing it you would still fulfil your purpose.”

Elias felt himself growing desperate. “My allies will search for me.”

“They can.” Martin answered nonchalantly. “This place is warded against avatars not only by Smirke balancing the fears in the maze but by a Leitner book that made sure no power can open your cell. Peter Lucas cannot use the Lonely to get in, no door of the Spiral can appear, the Desolation couldn´t even burn it down if they wanted to. Give up, Elias.”

A mixture of panic and pure hatred boiled in Elias and he had to use all the self-restraint he learned over the years to not just start screaming at them. “I will find a way out sooner or later.”

Martin shrugged. “You can try.”

And both of them left.


	6. Police investigation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elias disappearance is discovered and the police shows up. There are two really familiar faces among them.

Tim honestly hadn´t noticed that Elias didn´t come to work for several days. He rarely came down to talk to the common folk (reading him, Sasha and Martin) anyway and if he was down it was usually at the insane hours Jon worked. But since Jon had finally decided not to become a burnout patient he went home at a normal time like the rest of them (usually with Martin on his arm). 

The first time Tim noticed something was wrong was when he had to get a document signed by the bosses´ boss and left it at the table in front of his office just like they always did when Elias wasn´t around (he really disliked getting disturbed while busy). As he came back the next day the document still wasn´t signed. Tim frowned and went over to their secretary Rosie. Tim really liked Rosie (beautiful face and a sharp tongue what isn´t there to like) and had several times tried to get a date with her but was always refused. That hadn´t stopped his flirting.

“Hello cutie!” Tim sing-sang. “Still busy being the most beautiful person in any room?”

Rosie smiled at his antics. “No, I still won´t go on a date on you but you can keep trying.”

Tim groaned dramatically. “So cruel! But I will soldier on until I´ll finally manage to reach my goal.”

Rosie raised an eyebrow. “Didn´t you want to get back with Sasha?”

“Well, yes.” Tim got serious. “But I fear I could be happily married for a decade and I´ll still never stop flirting. Any partner I´ll have will have to accept that.” Then he grinned again. “Luckily Sasha has absolutely no problem with that. She´s just worried because last time we got pushed apart by the stress of our lifes and she doesn´t want that to happen again. Buuuuuut I´m not here to gossip about me and Sasha - as much as I love gossip. Do you know where the big boss man is?”

Rosie got a worried look on her face. She bent over closer and spoke quiet and urgently. “Honestly, I haven´t heard from Elias in a few days. At first I thought he was sick and forgot to call – even though that wouldn´t be like him at all – but he won´t answer my calls. If I don´t hear anything until this afternoon I´ll go over to his house and look for myself.”

“What if he doesn´t open?” Tim asked now frowning himself. That didn´t sound like Elias at all.

Rosie shrugged. “Call the police and let them open the door forcefully? I mean Elias will HATE it but for goodness sake he could have had a heart attack and lie in there paralyzed or something. I don´t think he lives with anyone – he doesn´t have a wife or children as far as I know. Maybe he´s already dead because I waited so long I can´t have that on my conscious.”

“No, no!” Tim disagreed immediately. “Don´t think like that. How should you have known something was wrong?”

Rosie nodded unsurely. “Yes but still. I hope all of this is just a misunderstanding.”

Tim agreed silently as he returned to their now daily lunch meeting where Jon happily droned on and on about the use of flensing and overfishing in the oceans or something useless like that.

It wasn´t just a misunderstanding. The next day Tim´s five-minute (more like half an hour) coffee break was interrupted by several police officers coming into the office. Sasha immediately sprang out of her chair as she saw them and Martin flinched so hard that he unintentionally tipped over his tea cup. He cursed loudly and ran to the kitchen to get some paper to clean it up.

A female officer with dark skin and wearing a hijab stepped forward. “I´m really sorry for the sudden interruption but I fear we will have to search the office and question all of you. Elias Bouchard seemed to have disappeared and we need to find him.”

“Elias disappeared?” Sasha asked who apparently hadn´t heard of it before. “Since when? What happened?

The police woman smiled thinly. “If we knew that we wouldn´t be here. So if you could leave the room in an orderly fashion please? We will search here while at the same time questioning you one by one.”

Martin seemed pretty shocked at seeing the police and his eyes shifted between the speaker of the group and the slightly smaller woman next to her with short cropped blond hair while he hurriedly wiped up his spilled tea. After most of it was gone he hurried out of the room like directed.

Tim knew following the directions was probably a good idea. But... “Eh, sorry Mrs...?” He looked at the dark-skinned police woman.

“Hussain.” The woman answered. “Basira Hussain.”

“Yes, sorry Mrs. Hussain but I´m starving and I don´t know how long this will take. Do you think it would be possible for me to get my sandwich real fast?”

Sasha rolled her eyes and walked past him out of the door but Tim stood his ground. Sue him, he was hungry and he would be damned to let his food be taken away by some police investigation.

Mrs. Hussain sighed but gestured to the woman with blond hair next to her. “Daisy, go with him.”

Daisy scoffed. “Why me?” But she did follow Tim to the small kitchen and even gave him a small smirk as he gave her one of his small chocolate bars he always kept in the cupboards. As they walked out of the kitchen it had mysteriously vanished out of Daisy´s hands before the other police men could see it.

Finally Tim stood outside in the cold corridor with his sandwich in one hand and his coffee in the other. Sasha and Martin stood next to him with a grim looking police man opposite to them.

Sasha starred at him in disbelief. “How the hell can you stand up in a police investigation and ask for food?”

Tim shrugged and after he swallowed a big bite of the sandwich answered: “I didn´t kill Elias so why should I be careful? I´m hungry.” And as if to prove that he took another bite.

Martin nervously rubbed his hands. “I wonder how long they´ll search for. And what will they ask us?”

Sasha shrugged. “Probably just when we last saw him.” She looked thoughtful. “I guess that would be Friday?”

The police man opposite them cleared his throat loudly.

Sasha startled. “Oh yes, we probably aren´t allowed to talk about alibis or something, sorry.”

“So...” Martin asked with a nervous smile. “What are we supposed to talk about?”

Tim giggled. “Well I spy with my little eye...”

It took half an hour of Tim annoying his friends and the police officer before they got taken away one by one for questioning. At some point in that thirty minutes someone had fetched Jon from down in the archives and he had joined them in standing around and not-talking-about-alibis. 

Jon was the first to get taken to questioning, Tim was the second. He was taken to one of the small offices in the archive that usually belonged to administration where Mrs. Hussain and Daisy were waiting for him.

Daisy was starring angrily at him while walking up and down and Mrs. Hussain sat in the chair opposite to him and had a far more neutral expression. She was also the one who held the interrogation. “You didn´t seem surprised at me explaining that Mr. Bouchard was reported missing.”

Tim shrugged. “The secretary and I gossip all the time.”

Mrs. Hussain raised an eyebrow and took a note on the clipboard in front of her. “That would be Mrs. Rosie Brankin, correct?” Tim nodded. “Well then, when was the last time you saw Mr. Bouchard?”

“Friday he came down to our office to ask for Jon. Jon was down in the archive so he went there. The end.”

“Alright. Did you and Mr. Bouchard have a good relationship?”

Tim wrinkled his nose. “Not really. I think he´s sexist for skipping my best friend in considerations for a higher position and instead give it to Jon. But don´t misunderstand me: I like Jon. And it isn´t the end of the world just kind of shitty of him. But Sasha is already searching for a better job that will appreciate her so it´s nothing any one of us would hurt Elias about.”

Mrs. Hussain raised an eyebrow. “Would your friend have a chance of the better position if Mr. Bouchard were to vanish?”

Tim laughed. “The last head archivist did the job until she was like a hundred years old. No way would Sasha wait that long for Jon to pass the bucket. And the two are really good friends so I doubt she wants to steal his job.”

“Ok, noted. Did anything unusual happen around here in the last few days?”

“Eh... Jon and Martin finally started dating and their lovey-dovey eyes at each other give you cavities? Do you think Elias couldn´t take it anymore and fled into the night?”

Mrs. Hussain just sighed. “Thank you that would be all. Please send in Mrs. James after you.”

Tim stood up but hesitated before leaving. “Why is there such an effort made by the police force? I mean of course Elias has disappeared but he´s an adult man and it´s not like there is any prove of wrongdoing, right? But there are at least ten police officers searching the entire building the day after it was even noticed that Elias was gone. Isn´t that a bit... much?”

Mrs. Hussain and Daisy starred at him as if they wanted to attack him and Tim cursed his inherit curiosity but stood his ground. Finally Mrs. Hussain tilted her head slightly and answered. “The... Lucas family has quite a lot to say with the authorities. There is quite a lot of old money invested in the Magnus Archive and they do not appreciate a conceived attack on that.”

“The Lucas family?” Tim asked astonished. “I never noticed they were that invested in us. You rarely get to see them here.”

“Well that will probably change now.”, said Daisy – speaking up for the first time. “Since after Bouchard Peter Lucas will be the next in line for leading the Archive.”

“Daisy.” Mrs. Hussain hissed. “Stop giving the suspect information.”

Daisy shrugged. “He would have known by tomorrow anyway.”

Tim raised an eyebrow. “The next boss will be one of those wannabe businessmen born with a silver spoon in the mouth? Let´s hope he´ll manage to work with us mere mortals without getting his pretty suit dirty.”

He walked out to get Sasha.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To your information: The secretary Rosie doesn´t have a canon surname so I gave her the surname of her voice actress.


	7. Isolation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter comes into the archives and tries to find Elias.

Peter Lucas was in a really bad mood. Not only did he have to come back early from a fascinating expedition with the Tundra because Elias managed to vanish from the face of the earth but now he also had to interact with all the people under him so that he could find Elias again and so that the archive wouldn´t collapse in on itself. Ok, maybe he was dramatic about the archive. His husband (or not-husband? When did they divorce again? Oh no, they remarried after that, oh well) had always been a very competent leader when it was something he was interested in and the archive was a well-oiled machine even without him. Peter only had to introduce himself in a short staff meeting (so many people in a room made him shudder) and afterwards everyone went back to their work without questions.

But the “finding Elias” part proved to be more difficult. The police didn´t seem to be able to find any clue to where Elias has vanished or if he even was still alive. The security cameras in the archives unfortunately seemed to have several disturbances in their recordings (of course they did with the power of the Eye so strong in the archive) so they couldn´t verify when Elias had come or lefz in the time he vanished but most people seemed to agree that the last day they saw him was Friday. That left a three day window where no-one expected to see him and a lot could happen in three days. 

Apparently the last person seeing him was Jonathan Sims – the new Archivist Elias had been raving about; his new pet project. Sims only recounted that they talked about work and afterwards Sims went home together with his boyfriend Martin Blackwood (who tasted deliciously after loneliness but Peter had other problems right now) who had waited for him outside the door. Blackwood verified the account and Peter honestly couldn´t see a reason that either one would harm his husband considering they weren´t long enough in the business to understand their positions in the network of gods and avatars. There was also the fact that Elias coat had been found in his house not in the archives which suggest that he left after talking to Sims, especially since the house showed no sign of being broken in.

Unfortunately no connection the Lucas family could contact seemed to have any information. While avatars vanishing (dying) wasn´t anything unusual – the End would come for all of them at some point in time – usually someone would have heard something or known something about who did it. Maybe Peter was just spoiled by being allied with Elias who usually was the one to know something. Still the other entities seemed to become slightly... nervous. If one of them that had survived so long could just vanish from the face of the earth so easily who would be next? And what was the plan here? Was that a way to stop the Watcher´s Crown or did someone try to further their own ritual?

Most of this was conveyed to Peter via texts from his family but he had also consulted with Simon Fairchild himself. And after talking to Simon, the police and explaining his new position as boss-for-now to the staff Peter had more than enough interaction for a month and fled to Elias office (apparently now his office). 

It was as disgustingly tidy as only his OCD of a husband could make it – not paper out of place. Except... Peter frowned. Where was that ugly paper weight made of starring eyes he had brought from Maine? He knew his husband hated that hideous thing (just as indented) but that never stopped him from keeping it in his office to the confusion of most people around him. But now it was gone. Peter went over to the desk and then blinked in surprise as he noticed that the ground beneath him felt different than usual. He looked down and saw that that ugly carpet was gone that Elias insisted on keeping in his office and that Peter loved to leave muddy food prints on to annoy him. He started to search the office for something else missing but didn´t find anything that he could recognize.

With a frown on his face he sat down on Elias big, softly cushioned office chair. He hated to admit it to himself but he missed his husband. While Peter preferred to be alone most of the time – being part of the Lonely – he always knew that Elias would be there - at home, waiting for him. He might be busy with something himself or angry at Peter or wanting another divorce again but he was a fixed point that Peter could always turn to and now he was gone. 

As paradoxical as that feeling seemed in the end nothing could live on this earth by being filled with just the fear they represented. The earth itself rejected pure loneliness which was one of the reason Peter was trying to do his ritual. Even worse for Peter was that he was still mostly human and like every human being he needed light, the ability to move around, sanity and human contact. No human avatar could fulfil their god´s fear altogether without dying from it. 

And right now Peter really needed his husband back.

“Thank god, he´s finally gone.” Jon mumbled and put his exhausted head on Martin´s shoulder who sat next to him. “It is so difficult acting like I don´t see him there creeping invisible through the archive.”

They were sitting down in the small room down in the archives where they usually recorded. It was the best room to go so no-one would disturb them but frustratingly Peter Lucas had spied on them even there and only left after he watched them cuddling for ten minutes.

Martin smiled and petted his head. “Not very invisible to you, mhm?”

“Naturally.” Jon said sounding insulted by the mere question. 

“Do you think he will find something?”

“There is nothing much to find, we made sure of that. And he is the avatar of the Lonely not a detective.”

“Do you think Daisy or Basira might find something?”

Jon gave a half-smile. “Maybe? They are pretty good at their jobs but Daisy is more of the hunting-down police woman not the search-for-clues type. But I guess Basira always helped her at that. In the end the two of us have no real motive they can discover.”

“What, you don´t think they´ll think we kidnapped our evil boss to stop him from making an apocalyptic world where Basira had to kill Daisy? But it´s so obvious!” Martin joked.

Jon smiled but didn´t say anything for awhile. After a few minutes of silence he blurted out:“I´m worried Elias might be right.”

“That is never a good thought to have. Elias usually only tries to be right to manipulate you.” Martin answered. Then he sighed. “Ok then, what do you think Elias might be right about?”

“About the isolation driving him insane. It´s only been two week and he´s deteriorating. Of course I can only see him from the outside but I doubt even he is that good of an actor.”

Martin shrugged while being careful to not move Jon´s head on his shoulder too much. “He seemed fine to me when we brought him his food. And while the camera in the corridor don´t really work when they are directed at him I didn´t hear too much of a disturbance either when I checked them the last few times.” 

“He knows when you are looking and tries to keep a calm facade.” Jon disagreed. “But he can´t hide from me, not all the time.”

“And it´s bad?”

“Mhm.”

Martin didn´t say anything for awhile. Then he spoke up. “It´s not like he doesn´t deserve it.” He didn´t sound like he believed it himself.

Jon laughed. “Maybe. But an insane, extremely powerful servant of an evil god seems to me even worse than usual Elias.”

“It might stop his scheming.”

“Or make it worse. And should he ever escape...” A shudder went through Jon´s body.

Martin sighed and rubbed his eyes with his free hand that wasn´t blocked by Jon more or less lying on his arm. “So what do you suggest we do? I´m not spending more time with him than needed – not even mentioning that we have other things to do than babysit him. Should we bring random people down there to entertain him? How exactly do we explain the cell in the middle of an underground maze? How do we make sure they don´t free him or tell the police?”

Jon sighed. “I don´t know, it´s just something we should think about. He won´t try to kill himself tomorrow but if this continued it could get bad in awhile.”

“All right.” Martin said. “Let´s just think about what we could give our evil boss to entertain himself while being imprisoned in a maze for the rest of his life. Can´t be that hard we´re doing it with our pets constantly. Ohhh, maybe we should get him a cat?”

“No!” Jon immediately disagreed. “The poor cat.”

Martin giggled. “But he could do that thing the villains do in movies where they are looking directly at the camera while scheming and they pet a cat menacingly.”

“Martin!” Jon complained but he was smiling.

“Uhhh, what about a Hamster?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You might see in my story that I really dislike isolation cells as a concept. I really don´t get how they are still used in american prisons it can drive people insane.
> 
> Don´t put your kidnapped avatars in isolation cells even if they are evil.


	8. Discoveries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter is still searching for Elias and makes some discoveries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear Peter Lucas has been standing in front of my house the entire day. Super heavy fog the whole time :(

Elias hands were shaking and sometimes he swore he could hear whispers in the dark. He wasn´t sure when it had started. Maybe the second week he had been imprisoned here? While telling Jon and Martin about the dangers of isolation cells in American prisons was a bit of an act of desperation it was true nonetheless. It could rot a human mind in hours never mind weeks or years. He didn´t even got to go out to get some fresh air. While the room was more than big enough to move and even do some gymnastics to keep his body working, he still missed the fresh air and the sun. All he had in here was a dingy light bulb and the daily visit of either Martin, Jon or both of them bringing him food. At least the food was better than in usual prisons (they just cooked three portions to bring in the archive for lunch and brought him the third at night, he had Seen them do it).

Elias cursed his human side while desperately springing from one pair of eyes outside in the world to another to keep himself occupied and away from the dark thoughts that were threatening to overpower him. He didn´t know what would be worse: staying here for fifty more years or going insane and killing himself beforehand.

No, no, he couldn´t think like that. He had to keep Watch of the archive and find something he could use to get out of here. At least Peter had returned from his expedition to take his place in the archive until the police could determine what happened to him. Seeing his husband in his own office made him feel a little less alone as absurd as that was. And in contrast to the stupid police Peter knew enough of the situation that maybe he could find out what happened and free him. Or he at least might give him an opening against Martin or Jon.

Elias engrossed himself Watching Peter move through his archive.

Peter felt Elias Eyes on him and instead of annoying as usual it felt comforting. His husband was at least alive enough to Look at Peter so he could still find him. If he´d just know why Elias wouldn´t just come to him. Was this a game of some kind? Was that part of a plan Elias wanted to pull through and he needed Peter to be ignorant? Or was he stuck somewhere and couldn´t come to him? As an avatar of the Eye Elias wasn´t especially strong if it came to fighting but usually his words and long-winded manipulation were enough to protect him. But even the cleverest people could fail.

It took him over a week to search the archive top to bottom and listen in on any talks or gossip he could find before he finally – finally- found a clue. In the room the archivist usually used to record his statements one of the bookcases was dangerously wobbly. As he carefully pushed it out of the way it revealed a hole in the plaster behind it. On the ground were scrub marks indicating that the bookcase had been moved several times over the years – which probably also explained why it was so instable by now. On one of the corners of the hole in the wall was a bit of red substance that suspiciously looked as blood. Another few drops could be seen further inside where a small corridor let to a trap door. As he pulled it open and jumped down he was in a small room made of earth of which several corridors pealed off in different directions.

Peter sighed, he knew what it was: the maze that led to the prison complex build by Smirke. Mordechai Lucas had written down everything he knew of Smirks projects and passed it on in the family. The problem was that Peter could not be sure that the hole in the wall or the blood he found was in any way connected to Elias disappearance. Considering the look of the hole and the old scrub marks those had probably existed for a while but the blood didn´t seem that old. Maybe Elias had used the tunnels just before his disappearance for something that made those bloody marks but that seemed unlikely. In all probability it was his blood and it wasn´t like Peter had any other leads to go off. But he definitely wouldn´t stumble blindly in a maze made by Smirke.

He sighed and climbed back out the trap door.

“Damn it, Martin, Lucas found the trap door.”

“Which Lucas?”

“Which Lucas do you think? George Lucas the guy who made Star Wars?”

“You´re such a nerd.”

“Martin!”

Elias smiled as he saw Peter find the trap door. It would only be a matter of time until he found him.

Peter had to search his house for a bit before he found the compass again. He had gotten it on one of his travels and taken it home since he was sure he could use it later. It was a cursed object that was sure to lead you where ever you desired to go but you needed to lead someone else astray forever beforehand or it would do the same to you. 

Most people had neither the ability nor the will to lead someone astray for even a mildly long walk so most of them were lost themselves. But since leading people astray was a bit of a specialty of Peter he had known he wanted the compass the moment he found it - throwing a few people more into the Lonely barely made a difference to him. Luckily he already knew it would work on Smirke buildings. The poor soul he got the compass from told him about going through some Smirke architecture before one of the people that he lead astray wondrously found the right way which resulted in the former owner of the compass to mysteriously vanish leaving it behind. Elias had later told Peter that the former owner made the mistake to ask the Spiral for help at leading someone astray and Michael had found it far more amusing to let the intended victim go and watch the compasses owner vanish. 

After Peter first got the compass he used it on his ship a lot but it needed to be recharged after every fifteen minutes of using it and h just couldn´t transport enough victims on his ship to make it worth his while. That was also the reason Peter hadn´t already used the compass to find Elias. London was far too big to search in fifteen minutes increments.

Luckily it didn´t take much effort to find a sacrifice for the compass today, Peter just went out in the streets and went after the first person that smelled so much after sweet loneliness. 

Peter returned to the archive late at night after all the employees had finally left. Luckily he had the keys since he was the de-facto owner now and managed to get back to the trap door without any problems. Once down there he got out the torch he brought and looked at the compass thinking very hard of finding Elias. It pointed forward so Peter followed its direction.

He had been walking for quite a while and had started thinking about the possibility that fifteen minutes just wasn´t enough or that he might have been wrong where Elias was when he heard it: There was a sound in front of him. First excitement rushed through him (he had been right Elias was here), then worry (whoever might got to Elias could also be). He put out his torch and disappeared into the Lonely so whoever might come forward wouldn´t see him.

A bright light shone directly at him blinding him. Peter couldn´t see who was holding the torch but at least the person also couldn´t see him…

“Peter Lucas.” Jonathan Sims voice echoed through the corridor with a commanding ting to it. “ **I can see you.** ”

Peter was basically ripped out of the soft and safe realm he had inhabitated and thrown back into the real world. It hurt his head but otherwise didn´t harm him. Being someone who met far more dangerous things while travelling the sea than the small archivist he glared down the person behind the blinding light at. “I thought Elias said you had only started a few weeks ago. You´re a quick learner, aren´t you? Did you decide to get rid of your old master?” 

“Elias was wrong about the few weeks.” Peter couldn´t see him but he heard a smile in his voice. “And he was never my master.”

“Fascinating. And now? Are you trying to stop me with a glaring contest?” Peter asked mockingly. “You Beholding types had never any idea how to properly fight. Before you can stop me I´ll vanish you out of existence.”

That was the moment something hard hit the back of his head and he sprawled forward to the ground. There were black spots in front of his eyes and a ringing in his ears but he still had enough cognitive ability that he could go back into the welcoming embrace of Loneliness. If Archivist would just look away for one second!

“Hit him again!”

“But Jon!”

“He isn´t out for the count and if we aren´t careful he could easily escape even with cuffs on. We need to make sure and it will give us enough time to reach the cell.”

A sigh – then: “Fine.”

Peter tried to get his arms and legs under him fast enough to escape. He was to slow. The second hit took him out for the count.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually wanted to give Peter the book he used at the end of season 4 to bring Martin to the panopticon: „The Seven Lamps of Architecture“  
> Then I remembered that was the Leitner book Leitner used in season 2 when he meets Jon. And Leitner is still alive in this story so Peter can´t have the book.  
> So a cursed compass it is


	9. Trapped together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter wakes up in Elias cell and gets told he is there to keep him company. He isn´t very happy about it.

Peter awakened to loud voices around him.

“What did you do to him?” That was his husband, he was sure of it.

“He´s fine.”

“His head is dented in!”

“And he´ll heal and be as good as new.”

Elias slender fingers were brushing Peter´s hair out of the way and carefully felt at the back of his head. It hurt like hell and Peter groaned. Elias mumbled an apology then petted his shoulder comfortingly.

“Do you enjoy crushing the heads of the people around you, Martin?” Elias asked with a voice full of scorn.

“If it´s you two… yes, kind of? Although he has a pretty hard head - I needed to hit him twice with the baseball bat. Now that I´m thinking about it I feel like a pretty bad British man. I should have used a cricket bat instead.”

Peter managed to open his eyes to the bright light above him. It was a light bulb dangling over his and Elias head. Next to it he looked up in his husband´s worried face.

“You could have killed him.”

Slowly looking around Peter determined they were in a small room made of stone. Directly in front of him was a closed door made mostly of bars like in one of those cartoons through which Jonathan Sims and Martin Blackwood were looking down at him lying in Elias lap.

Right now Sims scoffed at Elias. “Why do you even care so much? It´s not like…” He trailed of, his eyes getting a glassy stare to them that Peter was pretty used to from Elias when he Knew or Saw something. “You two…” Sims eyes focused again and he stared at them as if someone had grown a second head. “You are married.”

“They are WHAT?” Blackwood next to him turned around to his friend and starred at him. “That´s… that´s impossible.”

Peter felt his skull slowly getting back in its intended form and groaned in pain. “And why is that?”

“Because… because…” Blackwood seemed lost for words. “I mean you tried making me kill him in the panopticon to further your agenda of stopping the Extinction. And he led Jon there to kill you. I mean…”

Peter frowned. “I have no idea what you are talking about. Are you sure, you didn´t get the blow to the head instead of me?”

“They come from the future.” Elias explained. “It´s a long story but basically I managed to successfully do the Watcher´s Crown and apparently got you killed for it.”

“Oh…” Peter tilted his head then slowly nodded. “Makes sense. I would have done the same to push my ritual through.”

“What?” Blackwood exclaimed. “But he´s your husband. Don´t you… you know love him?”

Peter shrugged and slowly pushed himself up to a sitting position with Elias help. “I guess. Kinda? He´s nice to be around for the few occasions I need human contact. Doesn´t annoy me otherwise too much. Oh and he always looses our bets. So he´s fine but I wouldn´t be surprised if he killed me as long as it´s for a good reason.”

“Plus we were divorced about thirty times by now.” Elias added.

Peter waved him off. “Who isn´t nowadays?”

“Most people.” Blackwood mumbled but there was no heat behind his words. 

Peter ignored him. “Well ok, so could someone please explain to me where I am, why I am here and what Elias had to do with any of that?”

“We kidnapped Elias to stop the Watcher´s Crown.” Sims explained. “And you are here to keep him company.”

“Wait, wait, wait. You are trying to stop… your OWN ritual?” Peter starred at him in disbelief. “Why? And what is that supposed to mean I´m here for Elias company? Do I look like a home entertainment system?”

Sims just shrugged. “I want to stop Elias ritual because I think it’s the only one that can work (ask him if you want to know why) and Martin and I aren´t very keen on another apocalypse. But keeping him in isolation for decades will drive anyone insane and we can´t have that and you were putting your nose where it didn´t belong. So this is a good solution to both problems.”

“I was putting my nose where it didn´t belong?” Peter repeated. “And that coming from a Watcher - unbelievable. But if you didn´t notice I´m part of the Lonely, we aren´t very good company usually.”

“You are still mostly human so even you need company sometimes.” Sims disagreed. “And since you and Elias were married for quite some time without killing each other I think you´ll get along better than you would like to admit. If you need to get away you can still reach the realm of the Lonely but you won´t be able to leave this cell because it´s warded so you´ll have to come back here afterwards.”

“I still need to feed the Lonely. If I don´t send it victims I will slowly waste away.”

Jon cocked his head to the side. “That is… something to consider. Luckily you don´t need a sacrifice for some time since you took one just this afternoon.”

“And I´m going to be stuck here for what, for decades?” Peter asked with a note of panic in his voice. “What if I kill Elias, won´t you all die then anyway?”

“I will not.” Sims answered. “And I will give you a very slow, very painful death if you even try.”

“My family will search for me.”

Sims laughed. “Yes, because no family cares for each other more than the Lucases. Let´s be honest no one will even notice your gone until weeks later. The only person who even slightly cares for you is in this room. No-one will come to save you.”

Peter had never been prone to have panic attacks. Crying as a child had never resulted in anything but being ignored and panicking too much on sea while in a storm could kill you. But if there was anything he appreciated the most after second to his god it probably was the freedom it provided and they were threatening to take that away. He forced himself to take deep, regular breaths and pushed the thought of years in a cage away. He´d deal with is later. Right now he forced a smile on his face. “Well Elias darling, it looks like we get another honeymoon. It´s just the twenty-eighth or something right?”

The corners of Elias mouth twitched upward slightly. “Usually we stay somewhere nicer.”

“Because of posh old you.”

“You enjoy the travel.”

“Well of course I do. I especially enjoy leaving you stranded in some foreign country.”

“I figured you did since it keeps happening.”

Peter saw Blackwood lean over to Sims and whisper. “They are kind of adorable.”

Sims just sighed and started to turn around. “We´ll leave you to it.”

“Wait.” Peter protested. “What exactly am I supposed to do the next couple of decades? Elias can just Watch Netflix through the eyes of any fool up there but I can´t. Am I supposed to stare at the walls for the rest of my life?”

Sims pushed a hand through his dark hair that had started to grey. “I will find you something, just… don´t kill each other today.” And he walked off.

“I´ll bring you some tea and a good book.” Martin said to Peter already turning to follow him. “Oh and some new clothing – the stuff we got for Elias won´t fit you.”

“You don´t even know what I like to read.” Peter shouted after him. “Or my size.”

“Yes I do. I`m from the future, forgotten?” And he was out of sight.

Peter sighed and leant back against Elias chest. “That could have gone better. I wanted to heroically walk in and safe my damsel in distress.”

“Well, I appreciate the thought but now we are both stuck here.”

“Yes.” Peter sighed again then he sat up again and looked at Elias. “So… are we going to have welcome-back-sex? Or maybe let´s-be-kidnapped-together-sex?”

“I would be amendable for that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally all of your theories get confirmed: Peter and Elias will become Secret underground prison husbands.
> 
> That was planned from the beginning since I really ship LonelyEyes and didn´t want Elias to be alone in his cell (and because Martin deserves some revenge on Peter after what he´s done to him in season 4).


	10. Hunted down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daisy appears and forces Jon to admit to what he and Martin are doing.

Immediately after sleeping together Peter left Elias alone in bed and vanished into the Lonely. Elias didn´t mind considering that was a common behaviour of his husband. Ironically instead of making him feel more alone like usual he felt warm. His only real human connection had always been Peter and he really didn´t mind him going overseas so much – no, what actually worried him was the thought of him not coming back. But usually he would just keep an Eye out for him and things were fine. Peter could feel his occasional glance but didn´t care since apparently feeling people looking from far away made you feel even more alone.

But now Peter could never leave him again – not really. No one could bear their god´s touch for too long and Peter would come back out of the Lonely eventually. And he would be angry at Elias and they would argue as usual and he would go away again for awhile but then he would be back and Elias would be able to feel human touch again.

Elias hands had stopped shaking and the only thing he could here was his own breath. He hadn´t felt so calm in days.

Jon waited in the cool night air outside of the archive. Martin had gone down the tunnels again since he apparently had a guilty conscience for denting Peter Lucas head in so now he brought him something to read (apparently a book about the navy since he would like that) and some tea (because of course he would bring that). Jon really wasn´t in the mood to see either Elias or Peter again so he was standing outside of the archive and was just happy they managed to get rid of another problem. But it had been a bit of a too close call for him to be comfortable with it and he feared from now on it would only become more difficult.

The thing about predators on a hunt is: no matter how good eyesight their prey had they still managed to get close without them noticing. It only took one moment of distraction and the predator would be upon them putting their claws on their victim´s neck.

Jon only Saw Daisy after she had already thrown him to the ground and was sitting on him to keep him down. She held a knife on his throat while leaning in close. “What are you doing here?”

Jon starred up at her. “Daisy, what…?”

“ANSWER the question!” she hissed. “I saw you and your boyfriend go into the archive every day after closing - even on weekends. And now your new boss went in there with a torch after you but only you two came out again. Not speaking about how nervous you and your boyfriend were at our questioning a few days ago. I know you did something to Bouchard and Lucas so TALK!”

“Ok, ok, I´ll talk.” Jon assured her quickly. “I swear I can explain everything, just give me a minute. Could you please get off me and we can talk like civilized people?”

“No!” she growled. “Give me something first fast or I´ll slit your throat.”

“Fine,” Jon shouted. “You know about the monster, right?”

“Eh?”

“You´re Section 31, you know about the monster out in the world.”

The knife came closer to his throat. “How do you know that?”

“I work in the Magnus Archives.” Jon answered. “We document the kind of events that you investigate. And people talk about you.”

“Fine that makes sense.” Daisy relaxed slightly. “So yes, I know there are monsters out in the world. What has that to do with anything?”

“Elias and Peter are two of the big ones. We needed to put them away before they hurt even more people. Elias was about to seriously hurt you and Basira and...”

“WHAT? What does he have to do with Basira?” There was a wild look in Daisy´s eyes.

“Ok that may sound crazy now…”

“I don´t fucking care I already saw more weird stuff than fit into most fantasy movies just tell me what fucking Bouchard wanted to do to Basira!”

“I… Martin and I come from the future.”

Daisy raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“Listen, Time travel isn´t very easy to do or common but let´s be honest it isn´t that much weirder than endless corridors or Darkness moving on its own. In the end time and space are just relative.”

“I… Fine, Mr. Physics teacher I never quite had the brain for stuff like that so let´s say it´s true what does that have to do with Basira?”

Jon felt relieved that Daisy even gave him a shot. “Soon someone will find out that Gertrude Robinson – my precursor - is dead and Elias killed her. You and Basira will be pulled into the investigation since it´s about the weird things in the Magnus Archive so anyone investigating it needs to be sectioned. A lot of things happen that will end with Basira being magically bound to the Archive and Elias in particular and you will stay to protect her. Elias has plans to bring his evil god into the world which will result in a kind of apocalypse and you´ll have a breakdown and beg Basira to kill you before you hurt more innocent people. She… will. It will break her heart and afterwards she´ll do everything to bring Elias down to punish him. She´ll fail.”

The more Jon talked to more Daisy leant back from him – the knife on his throat long forgotten. In the end a very cold look had taken over her face. “Tell me you killed Bouchard.”

“Daisy, it´s not so easy…”

She grabbed him by the collar to shake him. “Tell me you killed that bastard.”

Jon shook his head. “Daisy, I can´t. My friends and I are magically bound to him, it could kill us…”

She let him fall back to the ground and stood up. “Then I´ll do it!”

“NO!” Jon grabbed her by her arm to stop her. “Daisy please! We… we used to be friends. We used to listen to the The Archers together and make fun about unrealistic fight scenes in movies. Please, don´t kill me.”

“I…” Daisy hesitated. “I´m not going to give Basira up for some pretend friendship that probably will never happen again.”

“Basira is in no danger as long as she doesn´t sign a contract with Elias which will be difficult while he is in a cell.” Jon had resigned himself to begging. “Please Daisy, I AM your friend. I care about you so much just give it a chance.”

Daisy sighed. “I… Fine. Tomorrow Basira and I will come to the archives at night and you´ll explain EVERTHING to me and her and show me where you hold Bouchard. If and only IF I trust you and see that all security measurements are to my satisfaction I´ll let him live.”

Jon released a heavy sigh. “Thank you. This means a lot to me and I promise I won´t spoil the next few years of Archers episodes for you.”

Daisy glared at him. “If you even dare to try that I will cut you into pieces.”

Jon smiled shakily. “It´s nice to have you back.”

She turned around and left.

A few minutes later Martin came out of the archives and looked down at Jon still sitting on the ground – looking pretty roughed up. He rushed over to him and started checking him for injuries. “What happened?”

“Daisy came by.” Jon answered and let himself be pulled up to his feet by his boyfriend. “Apparently she had been watching the archives and saw us coming in every night so she suspected us of having something to do with Elias disappearance. I explained everything I could to her and only just managed to keep her from just killing Elias. Tomorrow night she and Basira will come back and we´ll have to explain everything in detail and get them to agree to not kill him.”

“Well…” Martin said nervously. “I guess I´ll spend my time tomorrow in the office to make a nice power point presentation about the fears and why killing Elias and therefore also all of the archival assistants is a bad idea.”


	11. Discussions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin and Jon try to convince Basira and Daisy to not just kill Elias.

“This is all your fault!” Peter threw the chair as far as he could in the small room.

Elias just sat on his bed and patiently watched him as he tried to destroy as much in the cell as he could manage. Unfortunately for him there weren´t many things in the cell that he could destroy so it mostly involved him throwing the chair from one side of the room to the other and tipping over the table.

Peter didn´t seem to appreciate his silence. “If you had just managed to actually get a goddamn NORMAL person as your Archivist that accepted his desire for his god to reign the world like the rest of us then we wouldn´t be in this fucking situation.”

“But then you would be dead.” Elias pointed out.

“Not everyone of us are as terrified of death as you!” Peter shouted. “We are all going to die some day, JONAH, even if we manage to make the apocalypse happen the End will come to all of us at some point. That is nature.”

“I still don´t see a reason to not take everything out of life that I can get.” Elias disagreed – a small shudder ran over his back at the thought of going into that cold void that was death. “And I don´t think you´re eager to die either.”

“Of course not.” Peter was going back and for in the small room and throwing angry glares at Elias. “But being stuck in here for the rest of my life doesn´t sound so much better.”

“We can still escape. There is no such thing as an inescapable prison.”

“Yeah.” Peter let out a short laugh that missed any humour. “With all the incredible experience that we have in escaping prisons. That will go wonderfully.”

“I can See and Know everything people do to escape prisons.” Elias answered calmly. “And you can literally disappear into nothingness. I´m sure we can find a way.”

“Knowing something and doing something are two very different things.” Peter said but he seemed to slowly calm down. His movement became less erratic and his voice quieter.

“I´m not saying it will be easy. But we literally have decades to do it.”

“Fine... Ok...” Peter huffed and sat next to Elias on the bed. “So we escape from here, kill everyone responsible for this and go back to business as usual. You try to make your ritual happen, I try to stop you and vice versa. And if anyone else tries their ritual we destroy them together. Ok, we can do this.” He looked at Elias with his head slightly cocked to the side. “Are you sure you won´t tell me why the Archivist said only your ritual could work?”

Elias put his index finger to his lips. “It´s a secret. But I promise if you survive to see it you´ll appreciate it.”

Peter sighed and slumped into him. “Fine, be like that. Can we fuck now? I want a distraction.”

“But of course, darling.”

Martin did actually make a power point presentation about Smirke’s list of fourteen, his architecture and closeness to Jonah Magnus and Mordechai Lucas and everything that had happened in their time travel. He especially focused on Jonah Magnus alias Elias and how he was connected to the archive and everyone in it but he talked even more about Daisy being part of the Hunt and how that meant she was just as much of a monster as Jon. And while both of them were in the unlucky position of having to serve evil gods that they both could still use their powers to rid the world of the monsters in it and that if they were careful they wouldn´t hurt innocents while doing it.

(“So Jon doesn´t attack innocent people?”

“I try to keep myself to hurting other monsters or at least criminals. Unfortunately I need to question people who had something supernatural happen to them so I don´t starve but there are enough people that has happened to so that I can be fastidious. I can Know who did something evil before and concentrate on questioning them. If we work together I can do the same for Daisy. You must know killing innocents isn´t good for either of you consciences.”)

Basira had listened very carefully to the whole thing while Daisy was walking back and forth impatiently after about half of it but she still listened until the end. 

Finally after Martin talked himself hoarse Basira nodded. “I think I got it all and I understand your position. These people in here are you friends and I wouldn´t want to endanger them either if I were in your position. But I´m not and in the end it´s the question of maybe five lives weighted against the fate of the entire world. It would still be more reasonable to kill Elias.”

“Basira, I really… like you and Daisy,” Jon answered. “You might not remember but we were friends and I would do nearly everything to make you happy. But if you try to kill Elias I will have to stop you.”

Daisy laughed coldly. “And what will you do, pretty boy? Stare us down?”

“Just because the powers of the Eye are less physical than the ones of the Hunt doesn´t make me less dangerous.” Jon said. “I Know of every bad thing you ever did – of every embarrassing moment – every innocent you killed or hurt in the haze of the hunt and I can make you see every single thing they felt. **I can make you double over feeling the pain they felt and I can make sure you´ll never have a restful night again. Right now you´re on my terrain.”** Jon looked at them with a look full of pain. “Please, don´t make me hurt you like that.”

Daisy scoffed. “I can still take you.”

“Will you risk Basira´s life and sanity to do so?”

She hesitated and looked back at Basira. “I… I thought you said we were friends.”

“We were. But I would do anything for Martin.” Jon put his hand around Martin´s. “I´m sure you can relate.”

Daisy sagged into herself and sighed. “Yes… I get it. Fine, a dispute with you will only endanger the world more. Bouchard might use it against us to get free and you are probably the most capable at keeping him locked up since you have mostly the same powers. So,” she looked at Basira and raised an eyebrow. “For now we´ll keep him locked up?”

Basira sighed and nodded. “Yeah, probably the best idea right now. But don´t think this is the end of the discussion.”

“So, I guess you want to see our security measures?” Martin asked. As Basira and Daisy nodded he went back to the computer. “Luckily I made another power point about that…”

Half an hour later they sat at a table with a small diagram of the archive, the maze under it and Elias cell. Basira and Daisy pointed at several weak links they saw and tried to give alternatives.

“So cameras won´t work around Bouchard?”

“No,” Jon sighed. “No modern surveillance works around the power of the Eye. I usually use tape recorders for my statements because the laptops just die if I use them and the cameras show disturbances around us. We put a camera there to look into the cell but it mostly shows static so we mostly use cameras to look into the corridors to see if someone is coming.”

“But that someone could theoretically also not be able to be recorded by the cameras?”

“Well yes.” Jon answered. “There could be darkness, fog, all kind of things.”

“Well, shit!” Daisy responded. “Do sound recorders that are a bit more modern work around him? Or heart rate monitors? Actually could we put a GPS chip in Bouchard?”

“I…” Jon frowned. “don´t know. We could try?”

“Cool, let´s do that.” Daisy nodded satisfied. “Plus, I think we should give both of them shock collars.”

Martin looked at her appalled. “Like you would give animals? Actually, like most people won´t give animals because it´s cruel?”

Daisy shrugged. “I´m not saying we have to use them all the time but again: fate of the world vs. a few monsters pain.”

“Think about what they have done to us – done to the world, Martin.” Jon put his hand on his shoulder. “I don´t like it that much either but it could give us enough time in an escape attempt to stop them.”

Martin ran a hand through his hair. “I… Fine. Fine but no using it until absolutely needed.”

“Ok.” Basira said in a business-like manor. “Next I wanted to go over to Lucas. I get that he can make himself invisible but what about infrared cameras?”

“We can try?”

And it went on like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here I go on about how terrible isolation cells are and I give them shock collars. I´m sorry but that´s the kind of terrible thing Daisy would do.


	12. Collaring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elias and Peter aren´t very happy to get collared and Tim notices Peter´s missing.

“I refuse to eat that.” Elias said while sitting on his bed with his arms crossed. The suit he was wearing right now was slightly ill-sitting since it was bought by Jon and Martin and therefore was not fitted to him. They had also put more comfortable clothing in his wardrobe but he refused to wear them so he was stuck with the oversized suit that made him look even more like a child then his words right now already did.

Jon sighed (quite like the exasperated parent). “Elias, don´t make such a drama out of this.”

“You put narcotics in the food,” Elias disagreed. “So you can put us in SHOCK COLLARS!”

Peter leaned against the next wall and didn´t say anything but also didn´t touch the food.

“Listen,” Jon started getting loud. “You will not get any food without narcotics until you finally get these collars on so either eat it or STARVE!”

“I´m honestly considering both options right now.” Peter said in a biting tone. 

“I have nothing against the other measurements you want to take.” Elias said trying to sound reasonable and pointed at Daisy and Basira behind Jon who were putting infrared cameras and other recording devices up. “Actually I´m kind of curious to see if any of this new technology might work on us. But I refuse to be collared like an animal.”

“You don´t have a choice.” Jon hissed.

“We could both eat sequentially the poisoned food you bring.” Elias pointed out. “Always waiting for one of us to wake up before the other eats anything. That way we wouldn´t starve and you could never come into the cell out of worry what we might do.”

Jon groaned in frustration. “If you do that we get a gun that can shoot tranquillizers; just eat it for god´s sake!”

Elias opened his mouth to answer but Martin interrupted. “Please don´t make this harder on everyone than it has to be. We all know you´ll end up with these collars either way the only thing you are doing is hurting yourself on the way. The narcotics are the nice way but I´m sure Daisy could find something far more uncomfortable.”

“I´m for shooting them and putting the collars on while they´re bleeding out.” Daisy said cheerily.

Elias looked between Jon, Martin and Daisy and seemed to come to the realization that he wouldn´t win this fight. He sighed and took the plate from the tray Jon had pushed into the cell through the slit in the door. Peter hesitated for a bit longer before following his example and sat next to Elias on the bed.

The slender and smaller Elias fell over in sleep first. His head slumped on Peter´s shoulder and his chest moved up and down in a regular rhythm. Peter carefully arranged him on the bed before lying down next to him. The bed was a bit small for the two of them since Peter was quite muscular but they made it work.

After a few minutes Martin looked at Jon. “Are they both asleep?”

Jon shook his head. “Peter´s still fighting it.”

They both watched Basira and Daisy work for awhile knowing they would only mess it up if they tried to help.

After another five minutes Jon nodded to Martin and unlocked the cell door. They both went in and Jon was first at the bed. He sat down on the edge and got out the collar he was given by Daisy. Apparently it would give them Elias position and his heart rate as well as the ability to shock him if needed. Jon carefully lifted Elias head so he could put the collar around his neck. He hated how innocent Elias expression looked in sleep – so relaxed and open. Jon reminded himself that Elias Bouchard had been a person before Jonah Magnus took over his body and this innocent appearance was his. He closed the collar and locked it so Elias couldn´t take it off. Then he got out the syringe with a seconds GPS tracker he would put into Elias body so he couldn´t get rid of it as easy if he somehow opened his collar.

Jon stood up from the bed and looked over to Martin who had already gotten the collar for Peter out. Martin looked rather hesitant to put it on anyone and Jon put a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to do this. I can put it on him.”

Martin shook his head. “No, I´ll do it. It´s just… there was a time where he was the only one I had to talk to. And he might have used me but I understood… his loneliness.”

Jon gave him a half-smile. “I know what you mean. Sometimes it feels like Elias is the only person that can really understand me. But we have to do this or we risk the entire world.”

“I know.” Martin shrugged. “And I kind of believe that this might actually be good for him – to be forced to interact with Elias I mean. He never had the chance for human connection with his family. And with my mother I… I really should stop seeing myself in him so much. Oh well.” 

Martin took a deep breath and knelt next to Peter to put the collar on. After using another syringe with a GPS, Jon took the dirty laundry out of the cell and Martin left a few books and a decanter with orange juice (Peter´s favourite) and a bar of dark chocolate (Elias favourite). He knew he didn´t need to apologise like that to them after what they did to them in the other time line but... it felt right.

As far as he had seen Peter Lucas he hadn´t been at all what Tim had expected. Instead of another, even richer and posher Elias he had looked like… a ship´s captain (which he apparently was according to Rosie) at the staff meeting he called at his first day. Someone coming from old money who decided to make his hands dirty kind of impressed Tim. But since then he hadn´t seen him at all which was kind of even more creepy than Elias all-knowing-stares. It had been WEEKS and while all the relevant paper work was done (in handwriting what did the guy have against computers?) no one ever saw him do it.

And now Tim again stood at the small table in front of Elias office where you could lay the documents that needed a signature and again it HADN´T been signed.

“Rosie, darling, has our next boss also been murdered?”

Rosie sighed. “I wish I´d know. He´s been like a ghost since he started here. I´m his personal assistance and I’ve seen him about three times by now.”

Tim patted her on the back. “The life of an assistent is hard. But you are holding together the entire archives so don´t lose heart.”

“Thanks, that´s nice to hear.”

“I´ll bring you a cake one of these days as thanks for your suffering for us.” Tim shouted over his shoulder while he already turned to go back to his office.

Once in there he announced himself. “Lucas has also left us to our own devices – let´s rejoice in our newfound freedom in this capitalistic world.”

Sasha raised an eyebrow. “How is that news? Nobody saw him in ages.”

“Yeah but he also stopped signing the documents we need him to sign.” Tim answered and waived the relevant document in his hand.

Jon and Martin exchanged meaningful glances and seemed to soundlessly get to an agreement (couples could be really creepy like that) and Martin stood up. “Give me that, I wanted to look for Peter anyway.”

Tim raised an eyebrow. “How do you even want to find him? Even Rosie doesn´t know where he is.”

Martin took the document and smiled. “I have my ways. Oh, movie night on Saturday still stands right?”

“You betcha.” Tim laughed. “Be ready to watch all the Harry Potter movies in one sitting. It´s British culture.”

“But they are all so straight and cis.” Sasha groaned.

“Have you seen the way Harry and Draco are obsessed with each other?” Tim disagreed. “Or how Harry describes Credic Diggory? A bisexual of my heart.”

“Sirius and Remus definitely dated in school,” Jon mumbled.

“Right we can pursue this discussion further on Saturday.” Martin gave them a wave and left.

An hour later the signed document got back to Tim with Peter Lucas name on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just for your information: Martin hs forged Peter´s signature since he knows it so well from the other time line and will now continue to do so. Hopefully nobody will even notice Peter is gone this way.
> 
> Also as a bit of self-promotion: If you like my writing and want to remember everything that has happened in TMA before the story continues at 14th January 2021 here is a short YT video I made so you can get up to speed again:  
> [A crappy recap of the Magnus Archives in under 15 minutes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrxpex3tsZw&feature=youtu.be)


	13. Testing and Torture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daisy, Basira, Martin and Jon test the monitoring equipment for Elias cell. Among other things they have to use the shock collars to test if they work - Elias and Peter aren´t very happy but Jon and Martin don´t like it much more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last day of the year - let´s all hope the next one will be better. As celebration I give you a new chapter.

After leaving it running over night Basira and Daisy where thoroughly testing all the equipment they put up in front of Elias cell. Unfortunately no camera they used ever managed to record Elias when he stood in front of it but it turned out that rather old-fashioned sound recorders could transfer the sound of the cell rather well if they used enough cables to connect it with a laptop a lot further away. The laptop could send it via internet to wherever they wanted it (right now Basira worked on a way to check on Elias per mobile phone wherever she was).

They also managed to prove that infra-red in fact didn´t work on the Lonely (as much as the geek in Jon would have loved to see that). Elias had been in the bathroom as Peter stood in front of the (right now working) camera and vanished into nothing. There was no trace of him any equipment could find except it being slightly colder where he had just stood. Basira pondered if a bit more sensitive cameras might be able to follow the cold but it would be hard to keep it apart from just a cold wind and probably impractical outside of any controlled environment.

The GPS signal also became undetectable after Peter went into his realm but came back with him afterwards. The signal of his heart rate was slightly better: Occasionally they managed to hear something but it was only a sporadic beat and then nothing again until Peter came back and with him his heart beat - regular but slightly elevated. 

“How long can he stay in that... lonely room or whatever?” Basira had asked Jon.

“Not forever – it isn´t inhabitable for even partly human beings for a long time. Maybe a day or two at most and then he would have to sleep for awhile in the normal world.”

“So he could give us the slip without us knowing where he is.” Basira thought out loud. “But the GPS signal is satellite controlled and we should be able to find him wherever he went afterwards. If he escaped he would need to find somewhere where the signal can´t reach him or he´d be on the run forever.”

Daisy bared her teeth. “There is no place on this earth where I couldn´t find him.”

Now came the part that Jon really didn´t wanted to test and if he looked at Martin´s slightly green tint his boyfriend felt the same. Jon played around with the remote control in his hand and looked at the ground in front of him. The remote had a lid that you had to push aside to get to the button under it so that you wouldn´t accidentally use it.

Daisy rolled her eyes. “For god´s sake just press the fucking button and shock the bastard!”

Jon sighed and looked up at Elias who was sitting on his bed with gritted teeth. “I´m sorry for this, Elias. I promise I´ll keep it as short as possible.”

Elias starred at him with hatred in his eyes mixed with fear. “Just do it!”

Jon nodded. “On three. One… two… three.” He pressed down on the button.

Elias let down a paint yell as his body became rigid from the electricity running through it. Jon immediately let go of the button and Elias fell over on the bed and began shivering but didn´t seem more hurt than expected.

“Ok, it´s over.” Jon said and put the lid back on the button and the remote back in his pocket. “I swear I´ll never use this again unless I have no choice in keeping you captive.”

Daisy scoffed. “Don´t promise that. We can use it in an interrogation.”

“NO!” Jon disagreed vehemently. “Not only is torture as an interrogation method absolutely immoral it is also completely useless. Someone being tortured doesn´t tell you the truth they tell you what you want to hear!”

“It always works in the movies.” Daisy shrugged. “And it seemed to work rather fine for me to get a confession out of people.”

Jon sighed. “Daisy you didn´t get a real confession most of the times - half the people you killed or imprisoned are innocent. That´s why there´s due process in police investigations.”

“Weeeeellll…” Basira looked a bit doubtful.

“That´s why there should be due process in police investigations.” Jon corrected himself. “Please don´t torture people anymore. I thought we would start working together now to feed our god´s in a… morale way as far as that´s possible.”

“Fine!” Daisy said grumpily. “No torturing, I got it. Torturing isn´t as much fun as hunting them down anyway. You can take over the talking afterwards.”

“Good.”

“Eh guys can we go back to testing?” Basira interrupted a bit impatiently. “We still haven´t seen if the collar works on Lucas.”

“He´s gone into the Lonely.” Martin pointed out. “Can´t fault him I wouldn´t want to be here either if I was him.”

“Try it anyway.” Basira said. “We can´t know for sure what works with all this magical nonsense and what doesn´t.”

Martin pressed the button on his remote and a second nothing happened. He was about to give up and just see it as another failed experiment when a scream ripped through the silence and Peter Lucas stumbled out of nothing and fell to the ground.

Martin jumped backwards in shock and let the remote fall to the ground and Peter stopped screaming. He tried to get up to his feet but they couldn´t hold him so instead he sat up with his back to the wall. As he looked up at them his face was grim and guarded and Jon Knew he wanted to go back to his realm to collect himself but was too scared to do so in case they would be cruel enough to test the remote again. Peter wouldn´t be able to bear it if they ripped him away from his peace a second time.

Jon didn´t like to be thought of as cruel so he awkwardly stuttered. “Eh… you can go back, you know… Martin won´t do… that a second time…”

Martin´s eyes became wide as he understood what Jon was implicating and grabbed the remote on the ground. Peter flinched and Martin´s face fell but he still stood up again and showed Peter how he put the lid back on the remote and slowly put it away in the bag full of books he carried down so he could give Peter and Elias something to entertain themelves. Then he held his hands up as if to show that he wasn´t carrying weapons. “Jon´s right. I promise not to use it again until you try to escape. I´m not… that kind of person.”

Peter vanished.

Daisy sighed. “Now that we are finished with coddling our pet monsters could someone explain to me why the collar worked while Lucas was away in dream land but the GPS didn´t?”

“Because the GPS uses satellites so that we can get a signal no matter where Peter is.” Jon replied already Knowing the answer. “But that signal has to travel a lot further to get to the… - parallel dimension you could call it - that is the Lonely. In contrast the remote control of the collar was maybe a few feet of where Peter had been in the real world and due to the warding Leitner did on the cell Peter can´t move very far into his realm.” 

Basira frowned. “So that remote wouldn´t only work inside that cell? That doesn´t sound very useful.”

“It would also work in the first few seconds of Peter going into the realm.” Jon answered. “Because he again wouldn´t be that far away. But afterwards it would be as useless as the GPS until he comes out again.”

Basira clicked her tongue. “Not exactly what I hoped for but better than nothing I guess.” She sighed and nodded. “Ok, I think we´re done here for today.”

“Who wants to listen to some Archers with me?” Daisy cheered.

Jon shrugged and smiled. “Why not? I don´t know most of the earlier episodes.”  
The three of them had already turned around and started going back but Martin hesitated. He sighed and got the books out he brought for Peter and Elias and knelt down to push them through the slit in the door they also used for food. Then he looked up at the place where he had seen Peter last. “I´m… sorry for hurting you. It´s not like you didn´t deserve it considering you hurt…” Martin let out a short laugh. “hundreds of people probably by now. But you´re still human… enough so…” He sighed and stood up. “please tell me if Daisy or Basira are using the situation to hurt you. I mean… I don´t believe they would but Daisy is still part of the Hunt and… and I know the horror stories of police and prison guards misusing their power and… just tell me please. Even if it´s Jon… I promise I won´t let you suffer needlessly.” Martin looked over to Elias who was still lying on the bed and refused to look at him. “That goes for you too.” And he turned around and left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I REALLY dislike using the collars on Elias and Peter if it isn´t needed but it makes sense to test them. But I at least made sure that Jon and Martin have the same guilty consciousness as me.


	14. Power vacuum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The power vacuum gets noticed by the other powers and Jon has to persuade them to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all had a wonderful first few days in the new year.

Daisy and Jon had agreed to try working together to find the… nourishment they needed to satisfy their gods. It wasn´t especially easy in the beginning until finally Jon found a statement of a monster that baited their victims with their beautiful woman-like disguise to sleep with it and then ate you bit by bit. The only reason the statement-giver had escaped was because he was gay.

(“Very kinky monster.” Tim had commented. “But very homophobic too.”)

Jon Knew where the monster would chose it´s next victim and Daisy managed to use that information to Hunt it down. It took her two days and in the end she knelt on its back with a gun on its head and Jon stood a few foot away asking it questions. He managed to determine that it was a monster which nature it was to eat people and it saw nothing wrong with that so there was no real chance of redemption.

After a few questions Daisy got impatient. “Can I shoot it now? This is getting boring.”

Jon shook his head. “Put it in handcuffs. We need to bring Peter something for his god too or he´ll die.”

Daisy raised an eyebrow. “So we´ll bring him the game of our hunt?”

Jon shrugged. “Why not? Does it really matter to you if you shoot it or Peter vanishes it out of existence?”

“Eh… not really.” Daisy yawned. “The interesting parts over anyway. But can he do that while sitting in his cell?”

“I´ll put it into the cell while Looking at him to make sure he doesn´t try to invisibly sneak out.”

“Fine. Your pet monster to feed not mine.”

Since it was already five in the morning they snuck the monster into the archive before anyone was in and gave it to Peter (who looked at it with hungry eyes before vanishing it) and went up again to meet with Basira and Martin. Basira and Daisy´s cover story for being inside the archive was further investigations into Elias disappearance. No one had noticed Peter missing since Martin had taken over the tasks needed to run the archives. Luckily he had already learned how to do them in the old time-line.

At least they thought no one had noticed Peter vanishing until lunch time when there was a polite knock on the office door that belonged to Jon, Martin, Sasha and Tim. All of them were sitting together eating lunch with Basira and Daisy who were acting like they were questioning them but actually just stole parts of their lunches. Tim and Sasha seemed to be a bit weirded out but Basira just mumbled something about their boss being an asshole that always kept them busy and being hungry.

As it knocked everyone looked at each other in confusion. Who would knock in the middle of the day? Maybe a statement giver? But they usually got directly sent down to the recording room by Rosie. Maybe she knew Jon was up in the office eating?

Tim recovered from his surprise first and said. “Enter.”

Several people came into the room and immediately Jon and Daisy where on their feet in a defensive position. Daisy was about to draw her gun but Jon put his hand on hers and shook his head. She growled but left her pistol holstered with her hand resting on it. By now Basira stood next to her mirroring the same position. Tim and Sasha starred at them in confusion while Martin inconspicuously stepped behind Daisy. Jon put himself in front of his friends and the visitors.

The people that had entered the office where a weird mix of young and old, male and female traditionally dressed and tank tops and solemn looking as well as beaming in happiness: Simon Fairchild had entered first, followed by Jude Perry, Annabelle Cane and Anna Lucas (Peter´s mother).

Jon forced a smile on his face. “Welcome to the Archives, what can I do for you?”

The visitors looked at each other and Annabelle stepped forward. “Hello Archivist, we heard that a power vacuum appeared in your sanctuary.”

Sasha and Tim looked around in absolute confusion and growing worry about what was going on. Tim mouthed “Power vacuum?” at Sasha who just shrugged.

Jon cursed himself for leaving his friends in the dark until now and putting them in potential danger. He had just tried to protect them from the truth but he hadn´t been any better than Elias at keeping important information from them. But he could take care of that after he managed to push the other avatars out of HIS archive.

He let a bit of his power seep out of him as he directly starred in Annabelle´s eyes with a green glow in his own. “There is no power vacuum in the Magnus Archives.”

Annabelle took a step back, looking surprised. 

Jude Perry scoffed and pushed her aside to plant herself in front of Jon. “Oh please. Your Watcher has vanished after centuries of guarding this place and his replacement - the lonely captain - that was supposed to guard you from us in his stead is also gone now. What is supposed to stop me from burning this old dump to the ground? So many burnable, dry papers.” The air around her seemed to heat up.

Several eyes opened on Jon´s arms where he had pushed back his sleeves and on his face. Jon could hear a shriek and a crash from where Tim and Sasha where sitting but he didn´t look. He was too focused on Looking at Jude in front of him. “Jude Perry, I **Know** you and I **Know** anything you ever cherished or loved. **Do you want to know what Agnes felt in her last moments? What she thought about you?”**

Jude gasped and stumbled backwards. Jon had the temptation to continue with her but right now there were more pressing matters at hand. He looked at the small group behind her and smiled. An eye could be seen shining out between his teeth. “There is no power vacuum here. Elias Bouchard was replaced by me after we couldn´t agree on the next steps taken by the Archive and Peter Lucas has been gotten rid of because he couldn´t accept this decision. Leave until I make sure no one will find your corpses too.”

“And what are the next steps?” Annabelle asked with polite interest.

“The watcher´s crown will be delayed indefinitely.” Jon answered and the eyes slowly disappeared into his skin again.

Annabelle looked him up and down and nodded. “That is all I wanted to hear.” She left.

Jude sent Jon an angry glare and followed her.

Simon Fairchild smiled happily at Jon but there was something in his expression that was disquieting. “How sad… I quite liked Peter and Elias.” He shrugged. “Oh well, the eternity will take everyone from me one day. I hope we´ll manage to… cooperate peacefully.” He gave Jon a polite nod and also went to leave.

Now only Anna Lucas was left. She was wrapped in a black gown that would have been fitting to wear in a funeral and she was covered in a cold fog. Her face revealed no emotion. “Did I understand you right that my son is gone?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I guess that´s what he gets for allowing himself to be… involved with a MAN of the Beholding. Didn´t even leave children to continue the line.” She turned up the nose at that idea and left.

There was silence for a few seconds. You could have cut the tension in the air with a knife.

“Well,” Martin tried to lighten up the mood with a joke. “I guess I shouldn´t be surprised of the Lucas family also being homophobic.”

“What the HELL was that.” Tim stammered. He was sitting on the ground after having fallen over his chair in shock of seeing Jon´s extra eyes. His skin had an unhealthy milky tone and his hands were shaking. Next to him Sasha was still starring at the place where one of Jon´s extra eyes had disappeared into his arm.

“Tim.” Jon stepped towards Tim to help him up with a worried look in his face but Tim backed off starring at him in fear.

“St… stay back.”

Jon stopped in his tracks looking hurt. Martin stepped in between him and Tim and Sasha smiling what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Hey guys, I have that power point that I wanted to show you…”


	15. Options

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim, Sasha discuss with Jon and Martin what to do now. And another avatar guest appears.

Several strong drinks and a power point presentation about monster later Tim´s hands had stopped shaking. He was still pressed against Sasha as if she was the only thing holding him together as they sat on their office chairs next to each other. Luckily she didn´t say anything instead her grip on his arm was very strong.

“So,” she summarized. “There are fourteen gods of evil and we serve the Eye-one because we work for the Magnus Archive. Elias is evil as well and trying to bring the end of the world and he already succeeded once but you, Martin and Jon went back in time to stop him. So you kidnapped him and Peter Lucas – who is also evil but like alone-evil not eye-evil. And… and these people that just came in are all also evil but part of other… gods or something.” She looked at Daisy. “Oh and she… she is like hunting-evil.”

Daisy huffed at that. “Better part of the Hunt as something as lame as the Eye.”

“I…I…” Sasha buried her face in her hands. “How can I be part of an ancient evil without knowing?”

Jon shrugged. “You can´t act like there was never anything strange that happened to you here. Remember your time in the artifacts department?”

She looked up at him. “How do you know about what happened there?”

“I´m the Archivist Knowing stuff is my job.”

“A… and those… EYES…” She pointed at Jon´s arm.

He rubbed it self-consciously. “They are part of my power.”

“You´re a monster.” Tim said in a grave tone. There was something hard in his gaze as he looked at his former friend.

Jon held up his hands in surrender. “Tim, I NEVER killed any human being. I´m not like that thing that killed your brother.”

Tim raised his voice in anger and stood up. “DID YOUR EVIL POWER TELL YOU ABOUT THAT TOO?”

“YOU told me.” Jon answered in desperation. “In the other time line. YOU told me because we are FRIENDS!” There were tears in his eyes starting to overflow and running down his cheeks but he didn´t care. “Tim, we both got stuck here; we´re sitting in the same boat.”

Tim looked away. “I never asked for this.”

“Do you think I did?” Jon exclaimed. “Do you think any of us,” he pointed at everyone in the room. “wanted this?”

“I WILL QUIT!” Tim shouted.

“Oh Tim…” Martin spoke up for the first time with pity in his voice. “You can´t.”

Tim spun around to him. “What do you mean? Of course I can!”

“Then do it.” Jon mumbled in a low voice and used his sleeve to rub away the tears. “Tell me that you quit. I´m your boss I can accept in Elias stead.”

“I…” Tim stumbled. “I… I want to… I…” Tears of frustration started in his eyes and his fingers dug into his hands hard enough to draw blood. “WHY. Why can´t I DO it!”

“Elias contract made sure no one could quit.” Jon answered quietly. “I´m sorry.”

Tim´s breath started to become quicker and he stumbled backwards nearly falling over his own desk. “So… so what… I´m stuck here forever now? Stuck to be a monster like that thing that killed my brother?”

“Tim, no!” Jon stepped closer again at seeing him hyperventilate but stopped once he saw Tim flinch. Jon took a deep breath and tried for a patient tone. “Tim, I promise you there is a way to leave the Archive and never come back. But please think about it before you make any rash decisions. You have options.”

“What,” Tim asked between clenched teeth. “options?”

“There are three that I see.” Jon answered slowly. “The first is that you just go back to your work and act like nothing has ever happened. I promise no one will try to involve you in anything supernatural. Nothing has to change...”

“Next.” Tim interrupted him.

“You can…” Jon took a deep breath. “You can blind yourself permanently. That would result in basically quitting. The Magnus Archive will lose all interest in you. It doesn´t matter how you do it and you can still be friends with anyone working here so… so Sasha could help you if you wanted. I… would too but I don´t think you´d be so happy about that.”

Tim´s knee were shaking so he sat down on the desk next to him. “And… And the third option?”

“You can help Martin, Basira, Daisy and I to stop other monsters. We can´t stop what we are but we can use our powers for good as far as that is possible. You can find your brother´s killer.”

“Danny.” The word seemed to come involuntary from Tim´s mouth. “Do you know what killed him?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know how to kill it?”

“I… have a few plans but they need revision.”

Tim shook his head then stood up again. “I… I need to think about this. I´m leaving. That is if our evil overlord doesn´t have anything against that too.” His voice was full of sarcasm.

Jon shook his head with a sad expression. “No… no that´s fine.”

Sasha stood up. “I´m coming with you.”

Tim nodded and was about to turn around to go when they were stopped by Jon. “Wait a moment.” Jon rummaged through his desk and pulled out a cassette with a tape recorder. He gave it to Sasha. “Gertrude made that tape for you if she ever… died. Well, she made it for the next archivist but she hoped it would be you. It should… help.”

Sasha nodded and took it without looking at Jon. “Thanks.”

As she and Tim turned to leave they were stopped again. At the wall next to them where the exit usually was there were three doors now - two of which shouldn´t be there. And Tim didn´t remember through which he had come.

“What the hell?”


	16. Michael

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael appears to find out what is going on in the archive and Jon tries to get rid off him as soon as possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a complete summary of the history of the house on Hill Top Road so if you don´t quite remember every stement concerning it or have questions how certain things connect or some time lines worked I think you would enjoy it:
> 
> [A comprehensive summary of the history of the house on Hill Top Road](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRpWMcl2W70)

Tim and Sasha who were trying to leave the office now stood in front of three doors. Two of which had appeared out of nowhere and they didn´t know which were new. Tim who already was dangerously close to a full-blown panic attack started shaking again. “What the hell?”

Jon stepped in front of them and said in a commanding voice: “Michael, now really isn´t a good time.”

A loud, inhumanly laugh echoed through the office and one of the doors opened. The… man that came out was very tall, with long, curled, blonde hair hanging over his shoulders and a smile that seemed too big for a human. “When is it ever a good time? People are always so busy nowadays. Never take the time for a relaxed… stroll through my walls.”

Daisy had gone into attack mode again and was pointing her gun at him. “What do you want?”

Michael laughed again. “Your toy won´t hurt me.”

Daisy bared her teeth. “I´ll find something that will.”

“Uhhhh, a little Hunter. How cute.” Michael giggled. “But I´m a bit too old to fall for your tricks.”

“Then would you like to be Witnessed?” Jon asked.

For the first time the smile disappeared from Michael´s face and he looked at Jon curiously. “How strange, a little Archivist not even in the job for a year and already so… powerful. What happened to you I wonder?”

“Something similar like to you.” Jon answered. “Just that my Gertrude was Elias.”

“We are NOTHING alike, Archivist.” Michael hissed.

Jon smiled. “Michael Shelley is still in you and he was deceived and betrayed just like me. Isn´t he the reason why you are so fixated on the Archivist and his Assistants?”

“I´M NOT…” Michael took a deep breath and a dreamy smile appeared on his face. “All of us are just worried about the sudden power influx and structure change in the Beholding´s strong hold. The Watcher´s Crown isn´t so far off with you, is it?”

“I have no interest in the apocalypse.”

Michael grin was full of teeth that seemed too sharp to be human. “It´s in your nature, Archivist.”

“There are many avatars without a desire for their rituals.”

“Yeeeeessss.” Michael stretched the word out. “But none of them are powerful, are they? None of them lead a group of believers. They have no ambitions. But you… you wanted to lead the Archive so much that you already killed two old and powerful avatars over it.”

“My only ambition,” Jon said in a calm voice. “is keeping my friends and allies alive.”

“An Archivist that tries to keep their Assistants safe.” Michael laughed again but this time there was a razor sharp edge to it. “How ridiculous.”

“I am NOT Gertrude!” Jon hissed. “I will never sacrifice MY people for some higher aim. And if you touch my assistants I will END you! Are we clear on that, Michael?”

“Yes.” The answer was forced out of Michael but he didn´t seem especially angry about it. He looked rather… curious at Jon as if he was a particularly interesting insect that had landed in front of him. Then the too-wide smile was back. “It seems like it will finally get interesting around here again. I can´t wait for the changes you will make to this organization. Oh, how I enjoy change.” And he opened one of the doors and went inside.

“And take your goddamn doors with you.” Jon shouted after him. A second afterwards two of the three doors vanished. Jon was breathing hard but tried to smile at Sasha and Tim who still seemed rather shell-shocked. “Sorry about that. That was…”

“The Spiral.” Sasha whispered.

Jon nodded. “Yes… quite right. But I promise he won´t bother you again, ok? If you ever see him or end up… behind one of his doors and can´t find out just… call for me. Out loud is more than enough for me to find you.”

“Right.” Sasha seemed to pull herself together and took Tim´s hand. “We´ll keep that in mind. Come on, Tim. We´re going now.”

Tim didn´t react and let himself be pulled along out of the door.

A few moments no one said anything then Martin tried to smile. “Well, that could have gone worse I think. I´ll just… make some tea and we can talk about what to do now.”

Jon nodded looking exhausted and sat back at the table they just had their lunch break with Tim and Sasha before everything had gone so horribly wrong. Basira sat next to him and patted his back. “They´ll cool down again. Don´t worry.”

“I hope so.” Jon mumbled.

Meanwhile Daisy was pouting. “Why didn´t you let me attack any of them?”

Jon sighed. “Well mostly because I needed to prove to them that I was powerful enough to protect the Archives but also because I think some of them are a bit… above your pay grade.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Daisy looked insulted.

“Listen, Michael is OLD. Like Elias is nothing against him. He has been around in some form or another for centuries, maybe millennia. I´m not sure if it is even possible to kill him – he encompasses so much of the Spiral. Same goes for Simon Fairchild – he isn´t as old as Michael but even more cunning. Annabelle is pretty young in contrast but you really don´t want the Web to become angry with you. Anna Lucas is a good way to get the message of Peter´s supposed death around but if you ever meet her again you´re more than welcome to kill her. Same goes for Jude Perry.”

“Anna Lucas?” Basira asked. “Is she related to him?”

“His mother.”

“Oh. She didn´t care about him dying at all, did she?”

“That´s the Lucas family for you.”

Daisy impatiently “So can we make a plan to kill them now?”


	17. Making a deal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon makes a deal with both Peter and Elias.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In two days the podcast will continue. Can´t wait :D

“Well that thing with your assistants has worked out wonderful, has it Archivist?” Elias asked with a very passive-aggressive tone to his voice.

“Shut up, Elias!” Jon growled.

Tim and Sasha had both taken vacation time after the incident. Jon warned them that staying away from the Archives would make them sick on the long run but assured them they were more than welcome to come by for only a few minutes and go again if they needed more than two weeks.

Elias didn´t listen to him. “You should be happy if they ever talk to you again. If you wouldn´t have kidnapped me this would never have happened.”

“Yes it would have.” Jon disagreed. “They just would have found out by nearly getting killed by monsters. I like this way more.”

“Even if they hate you forever?”

“They won´t.” Martin went in between them. “Now stop arguing about nonsense like that and let´s talk about more relevant things. Your mother thinks you´re dead, Peter.”

Peter laid on the bed with his eyes to the ceiling. “Ah, ok.”

“She didn´t seem to mind.”

“Didn´t think she would.”

Daisy giggled. “I would like to kill her.”

Peter shrugged. “Sure.”

Martin starred at him. “Don´t you care?”

“Nope.”

“She is your mother!”

“And she is a terrible one.”

Martin put his arms around himself. “So is mine, that doesn´t mean I want her dead.”

“Well, I think you seriously should reconsider that stance. You´ll be lonely either way but at least that way you´ll be honest about it.”

“That´s terrible.” Martin turned around to Jon. “Right, Jon?”

Jon swallowed nervously. “Eh… sure?”

“Jon, you can´t seriously agree with him!”

“Martin, you´re mother is awful,“ Jon explained. “You sacrificed everything for her and she made your life miserable. You can´t expect me to especially care for her when she made you cry so many times.”

Peter nodded emphatically. “Kill the bitch.”

“PETER!” Martin shouted outraged.

“Ok, enough about that.” Jon pulled Martin into a hug. “No one is killing your mother darling, I promise.”

“Shame.” Peter said.

“Shut up, Peter.” Jon answered between clenched teeth. “Anyway I have an offer to you and Elias.”

Elias cocked his head to the side. “Oh? I don´t think it will involve getting us out of here?”

“No.”

“So why should we consider it?”

Jon shrugged. “We can give you other things you want, as long as your requests are reasonable.”

“And what do you want for it?”

“Information of how to find and kill some monsters.” Jon answered. “Or stop certain murders. Maybe some rituals? I mean obviously no ritual will ever succeed but people will still die for them.” He shrugged. “Elias obviously has an advantage in the information department but I´m sure Peter has heard and seen things no one else did considering he traveled the world and can turn invisible.”

Peter half sat up from the bed. “So if I tell you how to kill my mother will you give me a TV? I know you use internet down here so it should be able to function if you connect it to it, right?”

“Is she the only monster in your family?”

Peter shrugged. “I think I have an uncle somewhere that is an avatar of the Loneliness but she´s the only one I closely know. All my siblings are lonely but have no part in the actual monster-part of it. So can I get a TV?”

Jon blinked. “Eh sure, that shouldn´t be a problem.”

Peter nodded and laid back down. “Good, I need some other entertainment than a few books and that idiot.”

“I love you too, darling.” Elias answered in an imperturbable tone. “Well fine, I guess that is an acceptable agreement.”

Jon raised an eyebrow. “And what do you want?”

“For now I want to see if you´ll hold true to your word. So I will wait how your agreement with Peter will function and if it works out I´ll think of making a deal.”

A week later Anna Lucas died. The same evening Martin managed to install a TV in the prison cell although he made a lot of jokes of Peter´s incapability with technology and that the TV would probably not survive him handling it long. 

Elias gave them information on Jane Prentiss afterwards in exchange for a bottle of (reasonably) good wine. He said that he didn´t want her filth in his Archives anyway so he was more than happy to settle for a lower price for his information this time.


	18. The Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim and Sasha return to the archives and get involved in a fight.

Jon, Daisy, Basira and Martin were in the middle of preparing for an attack on Jane Prentiss while before she gained her full power when Tim and Sasha returned to the Archives (holding hands). They were bending over the house plans of Prentiss´ residence so they didn´t notice them until Sasha cleared her throat.

“Oh Sasha, you´re back.” Martin sounded so genuinely happy that Jon had to smile.

Sasha nodded and raked her free hand through her long hair nervously. “Uh, yeah. We… we wanted to see what you´re doing for ourselves so we can… make an informed decision.”

Jon raised an eyebrow. “An informed decision if you are cutting your eyes out?”

Sasha shrugged. “More or less.”

“Oh.” Jon rubbed his hands together nervously. “Well I hope you won´t see the need to result to such drastic behaviours.” He pointedly looked at Sasha and Tim´s joined hands and raised an eyebrow. “Are you... you know?”

“Can´t you just Know it?” Tim asked briskly.

“That´s not how it works.” Jon answered. “And even if it did I try to keep out of my friends... heads.”

“Appreciated.” Sasha tried to mediate. “Well we thought since we are all going to die soon as a victim of faceless fear gods we might as well start dating again.”

Martin gave her an unsure smile. “That is... nice?”

“Sure.” Tim grunted. “What are you doing?”

Daisy smiled a smile so full of teeth she resembled a shark. “Planning to kill a monster.”

“What did it do?” Sasha asked sounding genuinely intrigued.

“Killed several people.” Jon answered. “And she plans to attack the Archives which puts even more people into danger. We´ll kill her before she can do that.”

Tim crossed his arms. “I want to be part of it.”

“We can use all hands on deck.” Jon nodded. “She has... a lot of worms that will stand between us and her. Some of us need to use fire extinguisher to distract them long enough for Daisy to get to her and kill her. Afterwards the worms should die too.”

“Fire extinguisher?” Sasha asked.

Martin smiled a bit sourly. “Trust me they work. Tried it far too many times already.”

Sasha nodded. “Ok. Martin could Tim and I talk with you? Outside?”

“Eh, sure?”

Martin followed them outside the door and looked at them curiously as he waited to find out what they wanted. Sasha seemed to struggle finding the right words - opening her mouth several times before closing it again.

Finally Tim took over. “You´re not a monster, are you?”

Martin blinked. “Not more than you two.”

“But you´re dating Jon who is a monster?”

“I...” Martin sighed. “It´s not so easy. Jon would never intentionally hurt anyone and we´re working on his... hunger issue by only letting him question monsters. He´s really trying, guys.”

“But he´s a monster.” Tim repeated.

“Yes.” Martin agreed. “But in the end there are so many humans who are far worse than he´ll ever be. He might give you some nightmares and he has a few eyes more than normal but he tries. Aren´t the real monsters people like... I don´t know Hitler? People who actively make your life hell on earth? Jon isn´t like that. And Jon loves me.”

Sasha´s gaze became a bit warmer after that. “And you´re sure he isn´t just manipulating you.”

“YES!” Martin said forcefully. “A hundred percent, you don´t know what we´ve gone through together to end up here.”

Sasha looked at Tim and nodded. “Fine. I´m not entirely convinced but I think we should start helping you and I can see for myself if what you´re saying is true or not.”

Martin smiled. “It´s good to have you back.”

Tim frowned. “Let´s see for how long.”

“THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME!” Tim shouted over the sound of the fire extinguisher he was using to keep hundreds of small, silver worms away from him. 

“You have a weird definition of the word.” Jon said next to him also armed with a fire extinguisher but he was missing Tim´s bright smile.

They were in the old house Prentniss used as a home base at the moment which was swarming with worms everywhere and they struggled to keep them away long enough for Daisy to fight herself to where the avatar was. Jon and Tim had been cut off from the rest of the group and they now stood back to back in a small, dirty room full of wiggling forms around them.

Tim´s extinguisher stuttered and went out but he just pulled out the next one he had put on his belt (he had four small extinguisher on his belt which arched under the weight) and used that one. “This is better than any action flick. Can we do this every Wednesday night?”

“Most definitely not!” Jon groaned. “I rather hear about this stuff than live through it.”

“Who knew an incarnation of an evil fear god would be so boring.”

Jon winced as his fire extinguisher stuttered and he pulled out the next one. “Tim the most exciting thing I ever did on my own free will was in D&D.”

Tim laughed. “Nerd!”

Suddenly all the worms around them fell to the ground live-less. Jon sighed in relief. “Daisy managed to kill Prentiss.”

“Ohhh.” Tim sounded disappointed then he frowned. “Doing this kind of stuff won´t make me anymore of a monster, will it?”

Jon shook his head. “Gertrude did such things for years and never fully accepted the Eye.”

“Ok then.” Tim smiled again. “When can we do this again?”

“I already told you...” Jon digressed. He Looked away into the Archive for a few seconds then cursed loudly. “No, no, no, we need to get back to the Institute.”

“What?” Tim asked confused. “Why?”

“The Desolation broke into the maze under it to find Elias and Peter and kill them.” Jon answered , already turning around. “We have to stop them!”


	19. Desolation attack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elias and Peter get attacked by Jude Perry.

Jude Perry impatiently strode along the dark corridors with some of the believers of the church of the lightless flame following her. There was a small flame burning in her one hand and in the other one she held the cursed map that showed you the way to anything you desired but it would burn something of equal value to you before you could find what you were searching for. It was an artefact of the Desolation and it didn´t really worked on its follower. They had already burned anything of importance to them in their path to following their god. According to it she should be close to Bouchard´s cell. If she just rounded the corner...

She stood in front of a small cell where Bouchard was waiting at the door for her. His face seemed calm but his panicked eyes betrayed him.

Jude cackled. “Poor all-seeing Elias Bouchard. All alone in his cell ready for me to cook him.”

Bouchard raised an eyebrow. “Jude Perry, I would say what a pleasure it is to see you but I find it distasteful to lie.”

Jude rolled her eyes. “You act all high and mighty now but you won´t while you´re burning down to a crisp. Soon the Archive and all it´s inhabitants will be nothing but an old memory and the Watcher´s Crown will be put off for a few centuries.”

“Jon doesn´t want to do the Watcher´s Crown.” Bouchard reminded her.

“As if I would believe the likes of you.” Jude sneered. “And even if that´s true I´ll never pass up on the possibility to kill a few Beholders. You guys piss me off. Now die Watcher!” She raised her arm and pointed at Bouchard while focusing on the hot power in her veins jumping over to her victim.

Nothing happened.

Jude frowned at her hand. Usually that worked pretty easily. She concentrated on making a flame in her palm then she threw it at Bouchard but the flame seemed to bounce off an invisible barrier at the door.

Bouchard smiled. “It seems like your powers aren´t able to reach me in here.”

Jude screamed in frustration and the fire in her palm became a scorching flame. Then she took a few deep breaths and turned around to her entourage. “Open this goddamn door!”

They looked in between themselves. “How are we supposed to...?”

“I DON´T CARE JUST DO IT!”

A small man with dark hair stepped up. “Eh... I can pick locks. I can try my best with a hair needle?”

“DO IT!”

Elias watched nervously as the worshipper of the Lightless Flame was working on the lock of his cell. On the one hand he hadn´t been as close to freedom in weeks. On the other hand he hadn´t been as close to death in decades. Perry was walking up and down the corridor impatiently waiting and still with a flame in her hand.

He had tried to talk to Jude – to put THOUGHTS into her head that would make her stumble to the ground in sorrow but she had simply smiled at him and put head phones over her ears that seemed to play loud metal music. Unfortunately Elias relied on his victims hearing him speak for forcing them to relieve their worst memories and apparently Perry didn´t hear a thing he said anymore so he had to content himself with waiting. 

“I think I nearly got it.” The worshipper working on the door said. 

Then he made a noise of triumph and the door swung open. And suddenly the worshipper vanished with a scream as Peter pulled him with him into the Lonely. Elias was the only one who could see Peter stretching his hand out of the Lonely for Perry but she seemed to have realized what was going on anyway and used the flame in her hand to burn everything around her. The flame was mystical enough to reach Peter in the Lonely and he stumbled out of it with a scream holding his burnt hand.

Perry followed him, trying to attack again but Elias stumbled into her, throwing them both at the ground.

The headphones had fallen off Perry so Elias tried talking while getting back on his feet. “Jude Perry, do you remember...”

Perry put a burning hot hand on Elias arm to pull him back down and with a scream he fell back. “No more manipulating! How about I burn off the words on your tongue instead?” She loomed over him and her free hand lit up in fire that she held it directly to his face. “Any last words?”

“How about: Chill out, lady?” Tim asked standing over them.

Perry turned around and got a face full of fire extinguisher foam. She spluttered and let go of Elias which Tim used as opportunity to batter her head with the heavy metal body of the fire extinguisher. Elias had managed to avoid most of the foam by lying under Perry and picked himself up from the ground. He saw the worshippers of the Lightless Flame fighting Jon, Basira, Daisy, Martin and Sasha all armed with fire extinguisher and the archivist staff was definitely winning. Peter was on his knees next to Tim still holding his hand but as Elias looked at him Peter looked up and the two of them nodded at each other. They both started running into the corridor leading away from the fight.

Tim cursed. “Jon, they´re running away!”

“What?” Jon looked up from his fight with a bigger woman who was breathing fire and saw Elias and Peter running. “No, damnit, Daisy take over here.” Jon ducked away and Daisy who had already killed all her opponents managed to takes his place while he took out his remote control for the collar. Next to him Martin fumbled for his own.

Elias had managed to bring a good distance between himself and the cell before a shock of electricity ran through him and all his muscled locked up. It hurt so much more than the first time Jon had tested the collar on him – probably since Jon left it on for much longer. As the pain finally stopped he felt someone putting handcuffs around his wrists. He didn´t try to resist just hung in the arms of the person pulling him to his feet. As his eyes focused he saw himself being half carried half dragged back by Jon on one arm and Daisy on his other (Daisy did most of the pulling). Next to him Elias saw Peter being transported in a similar way by Martin and Basira.

Elias tried to get his feet under him but he shook too much so he gave up.

“That´s what you get for running away.” Jon said but his voice didn´t manage to hide the tint of guilt in it.

Elias smiled tiredly. “Can´t fault us for trying.”

“No.” Jon answered quietly. “Sorry for being so late. Perry´s dead now and I promise it will not happen again.”

“You can´t promise that as long as you keep us in that undefended cell.”

“I´m not letting you out!”

“Please, Jon...”

“NO Elias!” They had reached the cell and Jon tried to put him gently down on the bed while Daisy was far less concerned with the gently-part. “Listen, I´ll think of a way to make it safer for you but I will definitely not just let you go.”

Elias knew that was the most he could hope for at this point and nodded. “Fine.” Jon turned around as Martin and Basira brought Peter in but Elias wasn´t finished. “I think we deserve something as an apology.”

Jon sighed. “Yes, sure. I´ll bring you a second wine tomorrow.”

“The last one was a bit too sweet for my taste.”

“Spoiled git!”


	20. What the monster

After Jude Perry´s attack Elias and Peter weren´t especially happy with their captors. Any time one of the archival staff came down they were greeted by nothing but mockery and angry glares. They also started having loud intercourse whenever one of them came down to bring them food. Tim seemed to think it was funny but Jon got fed up enough with them that he refused to go down again unless he had to.

It became worse and worse until one day it came to a head when Tim was bringing food down the maze and as he came to the cell door no one could be seen in there. He cursed and ran back up until he managed to find enough signal for his cell phone and called Jon who came running down minutes later. 

He took one look at the cell and sighed in annoyance. “Elias I can see you in the Lonely.”

Elias and Peter seemed to materialize out of nothing but neither seemed especially remorseful.

Jon rubbed his tired eyes. “I understand you´re not very happy after what happened with Jude Perry...”

“After nearly getting MURDERED!” Elias inserted.

“Listen,” Jon raised his voice in frustration. “I´m trying to find a way around keeping you in the cell where you´re vulnerable to attacks but you distracting me is not helping very much!”

Peter raised an eyebrow. “You´re working on a way to get us out?”

“Yes. No. Kind of.” Jon rubbed his tired eyes. “I have an idea but I have to research it further.”

Elias clicked his tongue. “I don´t really like the direction your research is going.”

Of course Elias had Watched him researching. Jon sighed. “Well though!” He turned to leave.

“Wait.” Elias stopped him. “You said if I give you information that you want you´d do something for me.”

Jon frowned. “Yes?”

“Will it be proportional to the information I give you.”

“Yes as far as possible. Why?”

Elias tilted his head. “Your ex-girlfriend is Georgie Barker, correct?”

Jon the blood rushing out of his face. “What is happening to Georgie?”

“So you still care for her?”

“Elias, SPEAK: **what is wrong with Georgie?”**

“She is making a collaboration with the ghost podcast of her new girlfriend Melanie King. They want to go into a haunted house where right now a monster of the flesh is waiting for them. If they go they´ll be unlikely to survive.”

“She is going in with Melanie? But... she can´t know Melanie yet!”

Elias looked confused. “Why is Mrs. King not allowed to know your former girlfriend?”

“Because in the other time line she only met her through me. And that was long after I started working here.” Jon answered. “How can she already know her now?”

Elias shrugged. “Considering the things I heard about the theory of time travelling I guess you did something that unintentionally brought them together. Maybe you killed the wrong ghost while hunting with Mrs. Tonner? Or maybe there is such a thing as fate and Mrs. King and Mrs. Barker would have always met no matter what you changed in the time line.”

Jon was only half-listening to his explanation already Looking for Georgie and Melanie. Right now they were already sitting in the car that would bring them to the supposedly haunted hospital. The radio was on loudly and he Knew Georgie wouldn´t check her phone until it was too late. “I have to go.” He turned around one more time to Elias. “I definitely owe you a favour but I don´t have time right now. We´ll speak later.” 

He hurried away

Melanie liked her new girlfriend. She was intelligent, beautiful, witty and had a beautiful voice that she had admired for years in her podcast before meeting her. She still considered herself fortunate in finding that bloody corpse in the supposedly abandoned factory building (even if she hadn´t felt that way in the moment) because it let to Georgie contacting her about the story after the police stopped questioning her. Melanie had nearly squealed at hearing the voice of her favourite podcaster but had managed to keep her cool. Somehow they had ended up dating and she was never happier in a relationship.

But while Melanie adored her new girlfriend and accepted her with all her flaws she wasn´t sure if Georgie shouldn´t have been a bit more afraid at the moment. They had entered the old hospital at dusk and it got darker every minute. Sometimes she swore she saw something in the shadows moving or heard a noise behind her.

“Maybe we should turn around.” Melanie whispered using her torch light to look behind her for the fiftieth time.

“It was your idea.” Georgie hissed back.

“Well yes.” Melanie answered. “But I get the feeling something is in here with us.”

“You´re just afraid.”

“Fear is the reasonable reaction of your body to a dangerous situation and sometimes you should listen to it.”

“Well, I´m not afraid.”

“You´re afraid of nothing!”

“Melanie.” Georgie stopped walking, looked calmly in her girlfriend’s eyes and started talking slowly. “While I usually don´t feel fear I do still feel reasonable cautiousness and if something was watching us I could still see it. There´s nothing here. It´s just another abandoned building like the thousands before it we visited. Everything is fine.”

“Everything is fine.” Melanie repeated.

“Yes.” Georgie smiled at her. “Just breath.”

“Right... right.” Melanie forced herself to breath in and out in a reasonable rhythm. She had done this hundreds of times already – there was no reason to be nervous. It was probably just nerves because she didn´t want to embarrass herself in front of her new girlfriend. “Sorry for that. I shouldn´t have panicked.”

“It´s alright.” Georgie gave her a short peck on the lips. “It is a rather creepy building. And if we´re right there should be a ghost in here with us. Maybe you just felt her watching us.”

Melanie giggled. “Maybe I just have an intern ghost-radar.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Alright, let´s carry on.” Melanie raised her torch light past Georgie to light the path in front of her. She screamed.

There was a giant shape in front of her. It was at least two heads bigger than her but it walked bent forward so it was hard to be sure. It´s pale skin seemed to be dripping in a dark liquid and it´s sharp teeth were on display as it growled at Melanie.

Then it came running at her.


	21. To the rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melanie and Georgie get attacked by a Ghoul and Jon comes to the rescue. Will he manage it in time?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jon to the rescue

The monster was rushing at Melanie and she just froze in place. She knew she should be moving but she couldn´t get her body to work – it was like her bones were suddenly filled with lead. The fear would barely let her take a breath.

She would have been run over if Georgie hadn´t pulled her aside in the last second. They both stumbled in the corridor that opened to their right and the monster rushed past them. It let out a disgruntled growl but the screeching footsteps indicated that he hadn´t taken long to course-correct.

“RUN!” Georgie screamed Melanie´s ear and finally her muscles obeyed her again.

They both started running down the dark corridor – not bothering to find out where they were going and nearly stumbling several times over the rubbish that was lying on the ground. The noise of growling and bare, clawed feet clattering on the ground came closer and closer until...

“Oh no.” Georgie exclaimed.

Melanie saw what she was talking about a second later. “Dead end.”

They turned around to the monster which was running at them.

“I love you.” Melanie mumbled. “Sorry that it´ll end like this.”

Georgie let out a desperate laugh. “Eh, I always kind of figured it would.”

The monster was only a few feet away and slowing down now that it saw its victims couldn´t escape anymore. Melanie would have sworn she saw an evil laugh on its face.

“STOP!” A commanding voice echoed through the hall way and the monster turned around. Melanie could only see a dark figure making its way towards them. **“You´re a ghoul correct?”**

The monster hesitated then it showed it´s knife-sharp teeth. It seemed to have difficulties with using his set of teeth to form words but it managed barely. “I... am.”

The dark figure came close enough to step into the light of Melanie´s and Georgie´s torches and it was a small man with dark skin and long dark hair run through by grey strands that was pulled back into a messy bun. He was wearing a long dark coat and seemed out of breath.

Georgie audibly sucked in a sharp breath. “Jon?”

Jon gave her a weary smile. “Hi Georgie. Sorry for just barging in like that but you seemed to need some help.”

“How?”

“Later.” Jon turned back to the monster. **“What are you doing here?”** His voice had an... undertone. Melanie didn´t know how to describe it but she nearly wanted to answer the question herself even though it was clearly directed at the monster.

“My... hunting ground.” The monster answered. “They were... intruding. So now... I kill them.”

“But you usually only eat corpses that have been dead for awhile.”

The monster made a sound that could have been a laugh. “Then I wait... after killing them.”

“There are enough bodies illegally buried on hospital ground.” Jon said. “You don´t need them.”

“They... intruded.” The monster repeated.

“Just let them go. If you kill them you will make me very angry and you don´t want to anger me.” Something shifted on Jon´s skin. It looked like... like his skin was peeling away revealing glowing, green... things. They were oval shaped with dark circles inside which moved like pupils. They looked like eyes.

The monster laughed again. “Just... a Watcher. Nothing to be... afraid of.”

“I Know you inside and out.”

“Not human.” The monster disagreed. “No secrets to... use against me.”

“I´m warning you.”

“You can... continue warning me... while I´m... eating you.” The monster now started moving towards him and Jon slowly backed off.

**“Stop!”** Again there was that demanding tone but the monster didn´t seem to react.

“Goodbye... Watcher.”

Bang.

There was a loud sound echoing through the corridor and the monster stumbled away. Another figure ran up out of the dark and a muscular woman with short, blond hair pounced on the monster.

Jon ignored the fight going on next to him and ran up to Georgie and Melanie. “Are you ok?”

“Jon?” Georgie repeated again with an absolutely baffled look on her face.

“I explain later. We have to go.” There was a wet impact sound behind him followed by a growl. Jon didn´t turn around but took hold of one hand from both Melanie and Georgie and started pulling them past the monster and woman. “Come on. Just don´t look at them, you don´t want to see that.”

The rest of the walk seemed like a blaze to Melanie when she tried to think back to it. At one point this stranger had pulled her away and then suddenly they were back at Melanie´s car. Now there were two other cars parked next to hers and one of them apparently belonged to Jon since he opened it and pushed Georgie – who hadn´t reacted and seemed to suffer from some kind of shock- down on one of the seats. Melanie was pushed on the seat next to her and she went down without complaints. Then there a cup of tea pressed against her hands. After drinking a few times the warmth of the tea started heating her from inside and she slowly came back to herself.

She blinked up at the stranger – Jon – who was standing outside of the car with his own cup of tea and the thermos flask where he got the tea from. “Who are you?”

“Ehm...” Jon seemed embarrassed and a bit awkward as he rubbed his neck. “I guess I´m Georgie´s ex?”

“Her ex.” Melanie repeated. “But...”

Georgie interrupted. “What the hell are you doing here, Jon? And what the fuck was that thing in there? What...?” 

“I... that was Ghoul.” Jon explained. “They are monsters of the Flesh that eat and otherwise... use corpses. It lives here because the hospital back in the days did some major malpractice and buried the bodies to hide that. And I... I´m here because I Knew you would be in trouble.”

“How?”

“I... work for the Magnus Archive now. Whatever rumours you heard about it – they were seriously understated.”

Melanie looked back at the hospital. “And who was that woman in there?”

“Oh, she´s a... work colleague.” Jon shrugged. “I guess we´re... monster hunters now?”

Despite everything Georgie broke out in hysterical laughter. She tried to say something, looked at Jon and started giggling again so hard that you couldn´t understand a word she was saying.

Jon looked disgruntled. “Yes, I know. I´m a way too stuck-up academic for that to be believable.”

Georgie tried to get herself under control. “Jon, you can´t work in the kitchen with a knife without cutting your finger at least once.”

“That was in college!”

“You managed to get a paper cut while we were in Italy on holiday and you wouldn´t stop sulking for the rest of the day.”

Jon sighed. “Just put on your seat belts. I´m driving you back to London.”


	22. Tier time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elias manages to negotiate tier time out of his cell for his and Peter.

Jon was more or less forced by his ex to bring her and Melanie to the Institute the next day. It became clear pretty early on that Georgie and Sasha got on like a house on fire. Minutes after being introduced to each other they had started discussing ways to research and gossiping about all the people they both new and used as information sources.

Melanie was a bit more of a hands-on person like Tim and looked at him full of envy as he talked about fighting a monster that set a thousand evil worms on them as well as several people that were apparently both on fire and throwing fire balls at the same time. According to Tim he was fighting them off mostly on his own and Jon didn´t bother to explain that some parts of the story may have been exaggerated.

Jon just left them to their excited chattering and went down into the tunnels.

“Thank you.” The words cost him quite a lot of effort to direct at Elias but he still said them.

Elias seemed to know how hard it was for Jon to say it and smiled self-satisfied. “So my information was worth a lot?”

“Yes.” Jon answered. “If you have anything that I can do for you I... I´ll do my best.”

“I want to go outside.”

“I can´t...”

“Not let us go free.” Elias interrupted. “I know you won´t do that. I just want to see the sun again I don´t care how you do it. If you want to pack me up in chains or connect me to a bomb that will go off if I move. Just let me outside for an hour.” He looked to his husband. “Peter and me.”

Jon avoided his gaze. “I...”

“Please, Archivist.”

The terrible thing was that it wasn´t such an unreasonable thing to ask for. On the contrary if Jon had been locked away from the sun and open sky for so long he would have asked for the same thing.

“I will look into it.”

There was something in Elias eyes that Jon had never seen before. “Thank you.”

Daisy and Tim were absolutely against the idea of letting Elias go outside in any way or capacity. Jon and Martin were arguing for it as long as proper precautions were taken. Melanie and Georgie both admitted to not knowing the situation well enough to be able to decide such a thing. In the end Basira and Sasha were both the undecided parties that would resolve the democratic decision.

“I mean... if we would keep ourselves to the British law that we are supposed to abide by as the police” Basira considered. “then both of them should have time outside.”

“They are monsters.” Daisy disagreed. “They deserve to die.”

“But they are still human enough.” Martin said. “Otherwise you and Jon would deserve to die as well.”

“They killed hundreds of people.” Tim argued.

“So did some of the prisoners in our jails.” Jon said. “And we still let them see the sun.”

“Yes but if they escape we won´t have the end of the world on our hands.” Daisy pointed out.

“We won´t have that immediately now either.” Jon shook his head. “Elias would need to manipulate me into getting the marks of all the fears without tipping me off to it first and then force me to start the ritual again. Or he´d need to kill and replace me. Either way it will not be quick or easy.”

“But it can happen.” Tim stated. “Even if it´s after our life time the people coming after us don´t deserve that.”

“I think we can keep him and Peter under control for an hour.” Sasha said. “I vote for doing it. Elias will never give us valuable information again if we don´t deliver on our end.”

Jon nodded. “His information saved Georgie and Melanie. I was so busy I´d never Looked for them without him pointing it out. Especially since they were perfectly save before they met me in our old time line so I thought they would be here too. I´m voting for letting them out.”

“Me too.” Martin raised his hand.

Basira sighed. “With the proper security measurements... fine, let´s do it.”

Elias right hand was chained to Basira and his left to Jon. Daisy had preferred to stay mobile in case he wanted to flee. Peter was chained similarly to Martin and Sasha. Daisy, Melanie and Tim were also wearing guns or knives in case they needed to defend themselves. Georgie had preferred to stay home. Neither of their prisoners complained as they were led up to the roof of the archive. It was the weekend so nobody was in the building and Jon Checked regularly to make sure no one could see their weird group and think about calling the police.

Luckily the roof of the archive was above all of its neighbouring houses so that it was impossible to look on it without using a plane or helicopter and knowing exactly where to look for them. The only people with that kind of knowledge in England were on the roof at that moment.

Jon left Elias the option to either walk on the roof as long as he stayed away from the edge or sit down on a blanket he had laid on the ground in the middle of the roof. Elias used the first ten minutes to walk around the small parameter of the roof but gave up soon and sat down. He looked awfully winded for just walking at a brief pace for a few minutes and Jon was reminded of the fact that Elias did not have much room to move around where he had been residing for the last few months. Jon bit his own lip – he refused to feel sorry for him after what he did to him and his friends (and the world) in the last time line. He REFUSED.

But it was hard to remind himself of that when he saw Elias tilting his head in the direction of the sun like a flower that had stood in the dark for too long. And when he breathed in the fresh air that had already been polluted by the heavy traffic around them as if it was the first breath he took in months didn´t help either. He looked incredibly happy at such simple things as the sun above them and the wind around them and Jon knew it was his fault. All this time he had felt a justified anger at the British or American prison system that so often kept its victims away from their human needs for sun and fresh air but when he had been put to the test in the end he did exactly the same.

Elias seemed oblivious to Jon´s pondering next to him. He was looking at his husband who was still walking around the roof - and considering Peter´s determined expression Jon doubted he would stop until he was forced to leave the roof again. Martin next to him tried to get him into a conversation but Peter didn´t seemed very inclined to it. 

“Thank you, archivist.”

Jon sighed. “It´s fine. Everyone would have done it after how you helped us so much.”

Elias let out a small laugh. “Now that´s a lie if I ever heard one. We both no half your companions were against this little outing. And if I were in your situation...”

“If you would be in my situation I would be dead already,” Jon answered.

Elias frowned. “I would have tried to avoid it. I do detest wasting talent if not forced to.”

“You´d still have done it.”

“Yes. I guess that´s true.” Elias looked away to the clouds above them. “I´m still thankful.”

Jon rubbed his hands together. “I appreciate it.”

“Maybe I could...” Elias was interrupted by a sizzling noise. His eyes became wide and his hands immediately turned to his shock collar that had started humming and sending small lightning blasts from the collar to his skin. It had turned on.

Jon fumbled for the remote control in his jacket pocket but it was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, I think Stockholm syndrome might be setting in. Elias is a bit too happy to do get whatever Jon gives him.  
> But a bit Lima Syndome might also be there considering how much Jon identifies with him


	23. Michael (2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon finds the culprit behind Elias malfunctioning collar.

Jon fumbled for the remote control in his jacket pocket as Elias shock collar sizzled with electricity but it was gone. Instead he pulled out a rusted old key which was twisted in a way which made it impossible to open any door.

“Goddamit, Michael!” Jon hissed.

Peter had rushed to Elias side but he couldn´t do anything to stop the collar. “Help him!”

“You have the key to the collar, Jon.” Basira said as the only one still keeping a cool head.

Jon pulled out his key chain and fumbled for the right key. He nearly let it fall in his agitation but finally managed to grip it. Elias body was seizing with electricity and the skin under his collar started smelling burnt. Basira and Peter took hold of his shoulders and head to make it easier for Jon to put the key in the lock of the collar and open it. Jon felt electricity jumping over to his hand but forced himself to ignore the pain until he managed to turn the key in the lock.

Finally the collar fell to the ground and Basira kicked it to the side. Elias breath came jagged and he had a dark red circle around his throat. There was a deep panic in his eyes and Jon knew immediately what Elias was afraid of right now.

“Deep breathes.” Jon tried to assure him. “I know it hurts but I promise you your host body isn´t lethally damaged. You´ll be fine in a few days.”

Elias shoulders lost some of their tension but his breathing still sounded awful. 

“We need to bring him inside.” Martin said. “We can treat his wounds there and if someone stole the remote control who knows what else they have planned.”

“Don´t worry about the person that did this.” Jon said. He felt cold furry building in his body. “I´ll take care of that.” He opened the cuff that connected him to Elias. “Basira please carry him down.”

Basira nodded and easily picked Elias up. The others turned to follow her except for Daisy and Peter. Since he was still chained to Martin and Sasha, they were forced to stay back too as Basira carried Elias away.

The furry that Jon felt was nothing against the one on Peter´s face. “I want to kill whoever did this.”

Jon shook his head. “I can´t just let run free to do that.”

“GODDAMIT ARCHIVST! He nearly killed my husband.”

“You already admitted that you would kill him yourself if it was to your advantage.”

“That is something else. No one kills Elias except me!”

“You´re overestimating yourself.” Jon disagreed. “No matter your power, you’re still extremely young for an avatar. This creature is so old even Simon Fairchild would have trouble to remember its birth – you´ll not be able to kill it.”

“I´M young?” Peter asked incredulous. “And what – you are so much older? If I can´t kill it neither can you.”

“I know. I´ll try to reason with it as much as a being of the Spiral can be reasoned with. And if it can´t be convinced then we make a plan and work together to bring it down.”

Peter starred at him furiously but he seemed to realize that Jon wouldn´t listen to him. He let out an annoyed huff and turned around to walk off. Martin turned his head another time to throw Jon a worried glance and Jon tried to give a reassuringly smile back. Then it was only him and Daisy on the roof.

Jon sighed and slowly started turning in a circle keeping his eye out for any door appearing. “Michael? Come out wherever you´re hiding.”

A high pitched laugh could be heard behind him and as Jon turned around he saw Michael standing in a doorway that led to a long and twisted corridor. Michael wasn´t stepping out of the doorinstead deciding to remain in the door way. He was trying to keep his escape route free.

“Hello archivist.” The impossibly wide smile didn´t reveal any of the nervousness Jon Knew he felt. “Didn´t you enjoy my little joke right now?”

“You nearly killed four of my people which wouldn´t have survived Elias death.”

“Well yes.” Michael tilted his head but the angle his throat took didn´t seem possible for a human being. “But for the sake of the entire world that doesn´t seem like such a high prize, does it?”

Jon crossed his arms. “You don´t care about the world.”

“No but you do. Poor little archivist trying to pretend he isn´t a monster like the rest of us by hunting other monsters. One day you´ll recognize that you aren´t any better than us no matter how much you like pretending.”

“Why. Did. You. Nearly. Kill. Elias?”

“You know why. The Watcher´s Crown is close enough you can taste it and your pathetic security measurements won´t stop it for long. The Watcher nearly escaped already after the Desolation´s attack. I won´t let it happen again.”

“I´ve been researching another way to stop him. A better way.”

Michael laughed. “There is no way you can stop an avatar from working towards their ritual unless you kill them.”

“Yes there is.” Jon disagreed. “It already happened once. Give me a week to finish the details of my plan and you can see for yourself that I have Elias under my control. I just need to have a quick chat with Annabelle beforehand.”

Michael looked at him with a curious expression. “I have to admit you woke my curiosity. But I´ll do you one better.” He stepped out of the door and gestured Jon inside. “Follow me and I´ll bring you to the Web´s strong hold myself.”

Jon swallowed nervously and glanced at Daisy next to him. She was shaking her head. “I don´t like this.”

Jon nodded. “Me neither but I think this might be the only way. The other powers have realized killing me now could very well result in the very ritual they are trying to stop. Tell the others I´ll be back soon.”

Daisy threw Michael a last angry glare. “Fine.”

Jon stepped into the maze behind the door.


	24. Peter´s ritual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon tries to recreate what happened to Gertrude and Agnes with Martin and Peter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only three more chapters :(  
> I hope you´ll enjoy my finale

“I really don´t like this.” Peter protested loudly for the fifth time. 

To be fair Jon couldn´t really fault him for being reluctant since he was chained to a giant stone in the middle of a clearing in the woods. His arms were stretched across the stone so that he was mostly lying on it on his back and his legs were bound to the ground so that he could only move a few inches in any direction. It was also raining in a slight drizzle and Peter who was only wearing a shirt was soaked through the bones.

“I thought as a ship´s captain you would be used to getting a bit wet.” Tim drawled.

“The getting wet part is really not my biggest problem with the whole situation.” Peter answered. “The ritual part is a lot more worrying to me.”

“Don´t worry,” Jon answered who was bent over a book and copying symbols from it in the trees around them. Sasha was standing next to him with an umbrella to protect the book from getting wet. “I talked with Annabelle about how to do this as safely as possible. The web is a bit of an expert in this after what they did to Gertrude and Agnes.”

“Having the mother of lies involved doesn´t make me any calmer.”

“Well,” Daisy shrugged. “if you die we at least know it won´t work and won´t use it on Bouchard.”

“Daisy!” Martin scolded her. He was standing next to the stone with a knife in hand but still managed to seem like worried hiker who just happened to come up to a giant stone with a man chained to it. “Peter this will work fine, don´t worry so much.”

Peter´s breath was quickening and he threw a glance to Jon who was still carving symbols into the trees and the ground around him. “What the hell are you even carving there?”

“It won´t mean anything to you.” Jon answered absent-mindedly. In truth the symbols he was carving were mostly irrelevant. It wasn´t important what they actually meant it was important that Peter feared them and considering how he was acting right now Jon was pretty sure they fulfilled their purpose. He stood up. “Ok everyone please leave the circle.”

The others except Martin and Peter obeyed and left the clearing.

Peter had started shivering. If it was from nerves or from the cold wasn´t quite clear but Jon suspected a mixture of both. “Please Martin, don´t do this.”

“It will be alright. Once we´ve done this you can go back to the sea. You can´t tell me you didn´t miss it.”

“You´re hurting me. I´m part of the Lonely binding me to you means I´ll never truly be alone again.”

Martin shrugged. “Nobody in this world is ever truly alone. You always knew that Elias or other powerful avatars could find you wherever you are but you knew they wouldn´t. The thing about loneliness is that it isn´t about the fact that no one CAN reach you it´s just that no one tries.”

Jon shouted across the clearing. “Are you ready?”

Martin turned around to him and smiled. “As ready as I´ll ever be.”

Jon went around the clearing with a small bucket full of sea water and used it to mark a circle around Martin and Peter. The air started smelling of salt far more than should be possible from the minimal amount of water that was used and the fact that it was still raining. Then a fog started rising up from the grass and enveloped everything inside the circle. It was so thick you could barely see your hand in front of your face and it somehow stopped the rain from getting through to them.

Martin took his cue to raise the knife and cut away Peter´s shirt. Peter tried one last time to convince him to stop. “Martin please...”

“Hush.” 

Peter wasn´t sure if the ritual making him follow Martin´s command was stopping the words from leaving his throat or pure fear. He watched as Martin pressed the blade above his heart and started cutting into his chest. It wasn´t very deep – just enough to let blood flow – but it hurt. Peter bit his lip to not let any sound escape as the agony flooded his body. Dear god, it had hurt less when he had managed to get shot ten years ago.

“Nearly done with this part.” Martin said in a voice as if they were conversing over tea. “You can scream if you want. There is no one here to hear.”

And somehow Peter knew that it was true. That even though they had just been surrounded by the archivist and his assistants that now they were completely alone in the world. It was a comforting thought.

“There we go.” Martin smiled and pulled the bloody knife away. 

Peter managed to raise his head enough to see the eye that Martin had carved into his chest. Martin bent down and picked up a small bowl filled with sea water that he had put on the ground. He tilted it over the open wound and Peter took a sharp breath as it ran over it. But somehow it calmed the pain still running in his veins. He hoped that it would be over now.

Martin put the bowl back down and picked the knife up again. “Nearly finished, there is just one last part.”

Peter braced himself for Martin to start cutting him again but to his surprise Martin used the knife to slash his own palm. Blood started running down in his hand and on his arm but he barely seemed to notice. He gave Peter another reassuring smile then he pressed his hand on Peter´s chest wound.

Suddenly Peter felt the burning gaze of a hundred eyes watching him from every angle around him even though he couldn´t see them. At the same time he knew none of those watching cared even in the slightest about what was going on. None of them even knew his name or would bother to find it out. A thousand pairs of eyes could see his every move but he was alone. 

This time Peter screamed.

Since the fog had filled the clearing in front of them you couldn´t see or hear what was happening anymore. Everyone except Jon was starring at the thick, white clouds in a mixture of anticipation and hope. Meanwhile Jon was Watching every move inside the ritual ground. He could feel the power of the Eye growing inside even as the Lonely was joining it in equal parts. Peter Lucas fear was delicious to taste.

Finally after what felt like hours the fog dissipated. It took several minutes to first reveal silhouettes and then slowly give up more and more details. Peter was kneeling on the muddy ground in front of Martin his arms around his chest as if he was having trouble breathing. Martin just watched.

“Did it work?” Tim asked impatiently.

“Only one way to find out.” Jon answered and entered the circle carefully – ready to step out again if any residential energy would attack him. It didn´t. He felt the cold that was emitted from the Lonely around him but the warm embrace of the Eye kept it more than at bay. “Martin?”

Martin´s eyes lit up at seeing him and he pressed a short kiss on his lips. “Everything went exactly as planned.”

Jon looked down at Peter who slowly seemed to recover and was pushing himself to his feet by supporting himself on the stone next to him. Then he Looked at him and saw that the ritual had worked.   
Daisy stepped next to him and asked with a raised eyebrow. “How did he end up down there?”

Martin shrugged. “He tried to attack me after I freed him.”

Daisy smiled rather wolf-like. “I take it that it didn´t went especially well.”

Peter glared at him. “Are you finished? Can I finally go now?”

“Of course you can.” Martin´s smile was kind but there was coldness in his eyes. “You should return to your ship, I´m sure your crew has been missing you. Just remember I´ll be keeping an eye on you.”

Peter threw them one last angry look and vanished.


	25. Elias ritual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon forces a ritual on Elias who isn´t very happy about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there will be a small epilogue after this but this is baically the last full chapter.  
> I hope you enjoyed my story so far I´ll miss this.

“Peter´s ritual seemed far less... intimate to me.” Elias pointed out.

“Peter isn´t part of the Beholding.” Jon answered as he knotted the last piece of rope on Elias leg. This time he had to do all the preparation himself since he sent his assistants away. They would only be in the way in this ritual but of course Daisy was waiting in front of the door so Elias couldn´t escape. “For the ritual to work the Lonely that was part of him had to be involved. In contrast to that YOU don´t get to hide.”

Elias was stripped out of most of his formal clothing he used to hide behind; instead he only wore a revealing T-shirt and shorts. He was standing in a room where every inch was covered in mirrors and there were also several cameras directed at him. A hook was attached to the ceiling with a rope tied to it which held up Elias hands so that he had to stand on his tip-toes. His legs were tied to hooks on the ground so that he could barely move an inch in any direction. He was completely exposed.

“But does it has to happen in the Archive?”

Jon gave him a sharp smile. “Don´t like getting bound in your own strong hold? Well you don´t get the choice. The Beholding will bind you to me so it only seems fitting that we do it where our God is the strongest.”

“Can you even be sure this would work?” Elias protested. “The ritual of Gertrude with Agnes stopped Agnes from doing the Desolation´s ritual because the Eye was in the way and I can only guess it will work similar with Peter and Martin but we´re working for the same god. I doubt the Eye will want to stop itself.”

“That´s why I went over it with Annabelle.” Jon answered. “We managed to make a few... changes and I assure you after this is over you won´t be able to work against me again in any way. Actually you won´t be able to disobey an order from me nor do something you know I don´t want you to.”

“First you trap me in a cold, dark room for months, then you get me nearly killed twice and now you´ll take away my free will. Are you sure you are the good guy here, archivist?”

“Considering I serve a god of fear – probably not.” Jon agreed. “But I know this is the only way to keep what is important to me save.”

“But...” Elias was interrupted by a glass door opening next to them. Michael stepped out. “What is he doing here?”

“He´ll be coming by on occasion and watching to assure himself that the ritual is working.” Jon answered.

“In my opinion...”

“I don´t care about your opinion.” Jon interrupted. He looked at Michael. “You can stay where you are but don´t interrupt or say a word.”

Michael gave him a wide smile with too many teeth. The mirrors around them reflected him in weirdly distorted shapes and Jon had to look away because he felt a headache starting. 

Jon nodded. “Then I think it´s time to start.”

Elias tried to lean away as far as the ropes let him. “I don´t...”

 **“Jonah Magnus,”** Jon said with his voice underlined by a silent power. **“Tell me about your first encounter with one of the fourteen fears!”**

Elias bit his lip and turned his head away in an attempt to stop himself from answering.

Jon gripped his chin and forced him to meet Jon´s eyes. **“Answer me!”**

“The smallpox broke out in the town I lived in as a child.” The words tumbled out of Elias mouth before he could stop them. “After a few weeks the corpses were lining the streets. They terrified me but I was always a curious child and their bodies were also kind of fascinating to look at. They were riddled with big and small blisters from head to toe in different patterns. As a child I liked to imagine that the patterns meant something - that they showed something about their lives or their sickness. I was looking at them for hours to figure it out when I could – while keeping my distance from them as far as possible of course. I was sure if I could figure out the pattern it could help me to avoid getting the sickness myself. But I freaked other people out that were seeing a small child starring down at corpses for hours on end and they would usher me away. My mother also got angry at me several times because I just stopped following her when I saw an especially fascinating pattern on a corpse.

One day I saw a corpse with blisters that looked like a star formation and I recognized it was the local astronomer that I saw occasionally go to the big mountains at night to star gaze. I was sure it was finally the start of understanding the pattern but my mother hauled me away before I could take a closer look. That night I snuck out of the house back to the corpse. I had taken a lantern and a small book with a piece of chalk so I could sketch the pattern down. I started drawing but then I heard a horse coming down the street. 

While horses weren´t anything scarce back in the time it was rather unusual that someone rode in the middle of the night. Even stranger was the man sitting on it: He was dressed in a black robe that completely covered him except his hands that were holding the reigns. There was a single lamp hanging off the horses saddle but it couldn´t illuminate much. As he came closer to me I saw his hands were covered in the same blisters the corpses had but it was worse than at any corpse I had ever seen. The sight scared me so I put out my own lamp and hid in a small, dark alleyway. I was sure the man had to have seen me already since my lamp was the only light source for miles but if it did he didn´t acknowledge me.

He was slowly riding up to each house in the street. He didn´t do anything that I could see, just rode up and let his horse stand there for awhile. Then he turned around to the next house and rode up to that. There was no light in any of the windows of the houses nor was there anyone on the street so I was the only one seeing his strange behaviour and I was quite frightened by it so I just stayed in my hiding place until he was gone. It took a while because he was stopping so much but finally after what felt like hours he was gone.

The next day my entire street had been infected by smallpox – my family included – the only one not affected was me. I was carried off to relatives living nearby and never saw them again. Apparently they died only days later. I was watched suspiciously for weeks to see if I developed signs of the sickness and I was looked at in fear for months. Some of my new neighbours started calling me an angel of death since I was the only survivor but I never reacted. I knew what the actual angel of death looked like and the terror he brought.”

Elias hung exhausted in his ropes after he finished the story and Jon smiled up at him with hunger in his eyes. He stroked Elias hair in a faux reassuring gesture. “What was your next encounter?”

“Archivist, please...”

**“Tell me!”**

“It was five years later.” Words spilled out of Elias mouth again. But once he had finished his next story Jon asked another question, and another and another. Elias talked and talked until his throat became raw and the entire time he saw himself in the mirrors how he was hanging in the ropes. He saw Jon´s hungry glare from a hundred eyes covering his body who all were either directed at Elias directly or on his reflection in one of the mirrors.

It went on and on for what must have been hours – days. Jon slowly pulled Elias life story out of him bit by bit until Elias had nothing more to give. The time blurred into a glaze and Elias barely remembered anything outside of the small room and whatever the Archivist was asking for next when finally the questions became less frequent. Jon took longer between each story to think about what to ask next and Elias answers became shorter too since he had already told so much of his life.

“One last question.” Jon said in a kind tone but that barely mattered since this damn tone had been nice the entire time he had forced Elias to answer him. Still it was the only thing keeping him going in between all the stories of horrors and death and he clung to it.

“Please.” Elias mumbled exhausted.

Jon petted his head. “Just this last one, alright?”

It wasn´t like he had much of a choice so Elias just nodded.

“Good.” Jon smiled up at him. **“Jonah Magnus, I now know you in your entirety. There is no secret you hold from me. Will you be able to make the Watcher´s Crown happen after leaving this room?”**

Elias looked into his mesmerizing green eyes and let out a defeated sigh. He slowly let his head slump forward. “No. Not without your permission.”

He barely felt the ropes releasing first his legs and then his arms that had gone numb hours before and he fell into his Archivist arms without protests. Jon carefully caught him and then pulled his arm around his shoulder to half carry half drag him out the room.

He looked at Michael who had gone and appeared several times by now. “Are you satisfied now?”

Michael just gave a simple nod and then left through the door behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was my try of a small statement of my own I hope you liked it.  
> It involved sickness and death because I always thought Elias fear of dying probably came from his living in an age full of pandemics but he´s also far too curious for his own good because that´s what makes a good avatar of the Eye.


	26. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A tentatively truce has been reached

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that´s the end of the fic, I hope you enjoyed it. I definitely enjoyed all your nice comments :)

It was astonishingly easy for a person to appear again after months of being missing and a police investigation. Or maybe it was just easy for Elias. He told the authorities that he was involved in an accident while being a few cities away on a business trip and a hit on his head resulted in temporary amnesia. He even somehow got a doctor to certify a supposed examination that happened months earlier. Nobody asked any more question.

Elias had taken the reigns of the Archive again without any hesitation. Both Jon and Martin were happy to give him the responsibilities back. Martin especially was getting tired of forging Peter´s signature (of who no one ever noticed his disappearance except the other avatars). Occasionally Jon came up to Elias office again and reminded him who held the actual reigns concerning making certain decisions. At first Elias had tried to subtly manipulate him into agreeing with Elias opinion or doing things in secret but Jon Knew him and Knew what he was doing. He put an end to that quickly whenever the ritual hadn´t forced Elias to stop already. Trying to disobey an order from Jon or doing something Elias knew Jon wouldn´t approve of usually resulted in an incapacitating headache and after a few attempts which resulted in pain Elias did his very best to avoid it. Jon wasn´t stupid enough to think Elias had given up but at least his opportunities were restricted now.

Peter had at first refused to return from his trip to the sea until Martin did... something. Jon wasn´t quite sure he could every truly understand what made the Lonely tick but Martin seemed to. Peter returned shivering and breathing hard and Martin had kindly ushered him to sit and made a cup of tea. Peter got a stern talking to of everything that Martin had disagreed of that he did on his travel and the urgent suggestion to come back earlier next time or he might not like the consequences. Peter had vanished afterwards again although Jon was pretty sure that he had visited Elias in his house before he returned to his ship. This time Peter came back earlier.

Elias had also returned to the task of forming official relationships with the other avatars. Jon let him talk with Simon Fairchild and what was left of the Lucas family without any complaints but he kept up his own occasional talks with Annabelle and Michael. In the end they stood on a precarious but for now lasting agreement of not meddling with each other’s business too much.

Jon and Daisy were still hunting monsters to satisfy their needs and the other assistants joined regularly. Tim and Melanie especially had a fondness for the slashing part of the hunt while Basira seemed only happy with hunting if it was with her partner. Martin, Sasha and Georgie preferred staying either at home or at a safe distance from which they could watch.

Right now they were making their plans for the Unknowing that would happen very soon and give a perfect opportunity for Tim to finally take his revenge with the safety of the rest of the team having his back. The best part was that they could kill a major avatar without any of the other powers becoming nervous since stopping rituals of the other fears was more or less part for the course.

All in all things were good. They weren´t perfect but Jon guessed that was as much as he could only hope for living in a world ruled by fear.


End file.
